ALBANY, NY – The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced today that the Tioughnioga Wildlife Management Area is the newest pheasant storage facility in Madison County. DEC’s Reynolds Game Farm in Ithaca will provide stocked pheasants.
The WMA is located in the cities of Nelson, Georgetown and Cazenovia. Located off of Tinsley Hill Road, the storage site offers over 130 acres of open grassland habitat with countless acres of adjacent young forest and scrub habitat for pheasant cover.
Easy access is provided from NY Route 80/Route 13 via County Route 52 East/Damon Road East or via County Route 60/Dugway Road East.
Tioughnioga WMA is permanently replacing the old Hamilton storage site. The WMA provides free and convenient public hunting access with no reservations or pheasant access permits required, an easy-to-find contiguous hunting area, and clearly marked property lines.
DEC will stock pheasants at the WMA on multiple occasions during the regular season, ensuring the birds are available to hunters for a longer period of time. DEC developed an interactive map detailing pheasant release sites on state and private lands that is new for 2022. The interactive mapper provides much more information about stocking sites, including the number of birds released, the approximate last date of storage for each property and any access restrictions.
pheasant hunting
Statewide, DEC will release approximately 30,000 adult pheasants onto land open to public hunting for the upcoming fall pheasant hunting season. Many of these release sites are privately owned or operated by government agencies other than DEC. These include the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and various counties and towns. Hunters are asked to abide by any special rules, as the pheasant’s breeding system relies on these external entities to provide hunters with opportunities close to home.
The One-Day Pheasant Chick Program provides additional pheasant hunting opportunities through a partnership between the DEC and sportsmen, 4H Youth, and landowners interested in raising and releasing pheasants. Birds in this program are raised to adulthood and released before the season begins and disperse widely, presenting more of a challenge to experienced hunters.
DEC Promotes Hunter Safety
While statistics show that hunting in New York is safer than ever, mistakes are made every year. DEC believes that all hunting-related shooting incidents are preventable and encourages hunters to use common sense this season and remember what they learned in their DEC Hunter Education Course.
Firearms safety tips:
-Point your gun in a safe direction.
-Treat each weapon as if it were loaded.
-Be sure of your goal and beyond.
-Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
-Use of bright orange or pink is required for hunting large game with firearms.
Additionally, DEC encourages small game hunters to wear bright orange or bright pink. Wearing orange or pink prevents other hunters from mistaking a person for an animal or shooting in a hunter’s direction. Hunters wearing bright orange are seven times less likely to be shot.
Owners are encouraged to dress their dogs in bright orange or pink or another bright color. For more information on requirements to hunt with dogs, visit www.dec.ny.gov.
For more information and other important safety tips, visit www.dec.ny.gov and watch videos on hunter safety. For more information on how to get outdoors safely and responsibly, visit www.dec.ny.gov.