Startled, large flocks of pheasants burst into flight, exploding with colorful fuss and flutter from thickets of wild grass and fallen leaves.
But this was decades ago, when California’s autumnal landscape was a mosaic of fallowed fields, diverse crops and weedy stubble – and the handsome birds were abundant, including in the Bay Area.
Now the inconceivable is happening: Pheasants are vanishing.
To understand why, the state’s wildlife biologists are taking tiny tissue samples from the tongues of hunted birds in California wildlands, hoping that a map of the species’ genetic diversity will help explain their loss, and suggest a solution.
Birds will be sampled at seven different refuges over the weekend. Since November 2023, the scientific team has collected an estimated 330 to 350 samples; when the study wraps up after pheasant hunting season ends on Dec. 22, it hopes to have a total of 400 samples.
Increasingly isolated from each other due to fragmented habitats, the birds may be suffering from dangerous inbreeding. Or perhaps wild birds are breeding with weaker farm-raised and released birds, creating less resilient offspring.
Prized game animals, “they were so common at one time, and part of a longstanding traditional hunting heritage in California,” said Ian A. Dwight, principal investigator at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The research may inform future survival strategies, such as moving wild pheasants from one part of the state to another to increase genetic mixing. The state is also providing incentives to private landowners to improve the birds’ habitat.
Their loss is part of a larger emptying out of our skies. Nearly one-third of wild birds in the United States and Canada have vanished since 1970, according to a comprehensive study in the journal Science by a team of scientists from seven research institutions in the United States and Canada.
To study the pheasants, the wildlife department is sending staff to hunting “check stations” in the most rural swaths of the state, where game is inspected.
A small tissue sample — the size of a pencil eraser — is cut from each bird’s pale red tongue, a muscle that is rich with genetic material. This does not harm the meat or feathers, which are of interest to hunters. The sample is placed in a protective vial and stored at a CDFW facility to be later shipped to the University of Nebraska lab of Robert Wilson, an expert in the genetics of game birds.
Analyses will show whether the birds have long stretches of DNA where both copies of a gene are identical, indicating that they share a recent ancestor and are inbred. Gene variation is critical to a species’ healthy reproduction and immunity to disease.
The study could also reveal to what degree, if any, birds are the offspring of domestic and wild mixing.
Accompanied by his dog, Grace, CDFW Public Information Officer Peter Tira carries a pheasant after a successful hunt at Grizzly Island Wildlife Area on Dec. 20, 2017.
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Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
