Behind Bars and Into the Field: Montana's Prison Pheasant Program Is Growing — and So Is the Debate
On a stretch of fenced agricultural land at the Montana State Penitentiary in Deer Lodge, a couple dozen ring-necked pheasants pace the wire walls of a flight pen, their iridescent feathers catching the high plains light. They were hatched here, in incubators that replaced dairy equipment after a 30-year contract with a major milk company collapsed. They've never heard a hawk stoop, never learned to hold tight in a cattail slough, never scrambled through a standing cornfield. In a few months, they'll be crated up and driven to a Wildlife Management Area, where they'll be released minutes before a line of young hunters and their parents walks in behind bird dogs. This is Roosters for Recruitment — Montana's most debated wildlife program in years — and it's about to get bigger.
A controversial program that pays the Montana state prison to raise pheasants, which are then released for hunters, could expand to private and federal lands if the state's game commission green-lights the program for another five years. Montana's Fish and Wildlife Commission is expected to consider a proposal that could double the number of release sites for these pen-raised pheasants, which are intended as accessible targets for beginning hunters. That prospect is drawing fierce reactions from hunters, conservationists, wildlife biologists, and corrections officials alike — and forcing a hard conversation about what hunting is actually supposed to look like, who it's for, and what the state owes the next generation of license buyers.
From Dairy Cows to Pheasant Chicks: How the Program Was Born
To understand where this program came from, you have to understand what Montana State Prison lost a few years ago. The move toward pheasants at the state prison came after the penitentiary lost much of its inmate-operated dairy operation in late 2020, when Darigold canceled its contract and forced Montana Correctional Enterprises to scale down from 350 head of cattle to roughly 70. Darigold's decision to end the $1.5 million contract followed Costco's decision to phase out all products made with prison inmate labor. That left a substantial workforce, a set of agricultural facilities, and an institutional appetite for keeping inmates occupied — with no obvious project to fill the gap.
House Bill 637, sponsored by Joliet Republican Seth Berglee, did many things, among them establish a new program to raise pheasants at the prison. The 2021 legislation included an appropriation of $1 million, with the funding split between state hunting license dollars and federal dollars the state receives for conservation programs. Those federal Pittman-Robertson funds became eligible due to the Pittman-Robertson Modernization Act of 2019, which allowed federal excise funds to be used for hunter education and recruitment purposes in addition to traditional wildlife management uses. The goal, as written into law, was ambitious: produce up to 50,000 birds annually for release onto state wildlife management areas ahead of youth pheasant seasons.
Pheasants for the program have been sourced from Montana Correctional Enterprises, a bureau of the Montana Department of Corrections that provides vocational training for inmates. Birds are incubated and brooded at the Montana State Penitentiary in Deer Lodge, in facilities that previously housed the prison dairy, but last year additional flight pens were established at Pine Hills Correctional Facility in Miles City, which sits closer to most of the program's release sites.
Roosters for Recruitment: The Mechanics of the Operation
The scale of the operation has grown substantially since its rocky first season. Going into its fourth year, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks' pheasant-raising program had more than doubled production while cutting costs and adding holding facilities in Miles City. Around 39,000 birds were raised and distributed in 2025 alone. Since pheasants started hatching in Deer Lodge, more than 85,000 birds have been released across the state, with an estimated 60,000 set to be released next year alongside the addition of flight pens at Pine Hills.
The number of released birds has varied significantly year to year — from 5,730 in 2022, to 13,964 in 2024, and 9,853 the following year. The program's budget has been equally uneven, fluctuating from $605,000 in 2022, to $955,000 in 2023, to about $450,000 over the past two years. Birds — a mix of roosters and hens — have been released at state Wildlife Management Areas, Fishing Access Sites, and on some school-trust lands ahead of Montana's youth pheasant season.
Four one-acre flight pens have been constructed at Pine Hills, with plans to add four more. The facility is expected to receive additional sub-adult pheasants later in the summer before fall releases begin, and inmate workers from the Montana Women's Prison Riverside facility care for the birds, handling daily feeding, watering, bedding maintenance, and pen inspections.
Just under a dozen inmates at the Montana State Penitentiary spend their days working on the Pheasant Ranch, combining two Montana traditions — agriculture and hunting. The program offers well-behaved inmates the opportunity to raise pheasants from hatchery to release, providing both valuable life skills and a sense of accomplishment that's often missing behind bars. Broodstock consists of birds produced from later hatches that were not yet developed enough for release in the fall, as well as birds hand-selected throughout the year that display wild traits desirable in a breeding line.
The Case for the Program: What Supporters Say
Getting Young Hunters Into the Field
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has been clear-eyed about what this program is and isn't. "This is not an augmentation program, it's a recruitment program," Deb O'Neill, Special Project Unit administrator for FWP, told the Fish and Wildlife Commission. The agency's argument is straightforward: upland bird license numbers have been eroding for years, and the surest way to arrest that decline is to give newcomers a reason to come back. Early success matters — a bird in hand, as they say.
"There's a whole body of evidence that at that stage of someone's hunting career, success with a bird in hand or a fish in hand is really important," FWP chief of staff Quentin Kujala said. "If there's not some element of success, evidence suggests new (hunting) recruits tend to drift off to other places." FWP spokesman Greg Lemon put it plainly: "We believe that getting kids and their families out with a chance for success early on leads to them wanting to do it more. Putting pen-raised birds on state lands for the youth [hunting] weekend and working with dogs and working with mentors and having success is a good thing."
It's hard to say with certainty the program is reaching its goal, but upland game bird license purchases have climbed among youngsters by about 1,000 between 2019 and 2024. Meanwhile, adult upland license sales have climbed by more than 7,700 in the same period. The agency has been careful not to claim full credit for those numbers — other variables are at play — but they point to the trend as at least circumstantial evidence that the recruitment strategy is working.
Of the 78 young hunters surveyed by FWP, 72 reported being satisfied or very satisfied with the hunting, according to FWP's environmental assessment. Of total responses from participants who hunted at a stocked site, nearly 15% reported one year or less of previous pheasant hunting experience. Compared to 2023 responses, this represents an increase of 8% in the new hunter demographic.
Benefits Behind the Wire
Supporters also point to what the program does for the men and women raising the birds. According to Ross Wagner, Bureau Chief for Montana Correctional Enterprises, inmates who participate in its programs are 26% less likely to return to prison within three years compared to those who do not participate. National studies show a 7% reduction in recidivism for those who learn a new skill, and a 14% reduction when that skill is applied to a job while in prison.
Wagner said the program provides participants with valuable workplace experience and life skills: "Whether they're youth out here or female incarcerated or even the male incarcerated, they learn soft skills, they learn to work together." Inmates told reporters that prison can be a lonely place, but the pheasant program provides them opportunities to care for the birds from the hatchery all the way through their eventual release into Montana's wild areas. One inmate, Mark McGuire, captured the sentiment succinctly: "Feels good to have done a hard day's work and actually be able to feel like you've accomplished something instead of just sitting in a cell day long."
Montana's governor has even gotten in on the action, helping FWP staff release prison-reared pheasants in 2023 — a photo opportunity that signaled how broadly popular the program's dual mission of rehabilitation and hunter recruitment has become in certain political circles.
The Critics: Science, Ethics, and the Cost of a Bird
The Numbers Don't Add Up
Not everyone is buying it — and some of the sharpest critics are experienced hunters and former wildlife professionals who have spent careers thinking carefully about what actually sustains upland bird populations. Their objections come at the program from several directions simultaneously, and each one carries weight.
The cost issue alone is damning, depending on who's doing the math. Based on cost and birds released, critics argued the program was producing birds at $384 per bird, compared to private industry which produces them for closer to $20 per bird. FWP pushed back on that figure. The agency's own calculations put the cost per bird at $79.99, which while higher than the agency would like, would come down as production scaled with existing infrastructure. Even accepting the agency's more favorable number, the math is difficult to defend against habitat investment alternatives that produce compounding, multi-year returns.
"It's incredibly wasteful and unpopular with Montana hunters," said Matt Leow with Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. Several supporters of an earlier bill to phase out the program pointed out that the state had abandoned its pheasant rearing facilities in the 1980s and shifted focus to wild birds and habitat with considerably more success and sustainability. That state bird hatchery closed as production costs skyrocketed and evidence mounted that simply planting pen-raised birds was a poor substitute for habitat capable of supporting wild populations of pheasants and other upland species year after year.
The Biological Argument
Survival of hatchery-reared birds is widely acknowledged to be low, says Hunter VanDonsel, state coordinator for the Montana chapter of Pheasants Forever. "The science is clear, planting pen-raised pheasants doesn't work for population augmentation." That much isn't disputed even by the program's defenders — FWP has explicitly said population augmentation is not the goal. But critics argue the ecological risks don't stop there.
Critics worry that pen-reared birds could transmit diseases to the state's wildlife and damage Montana's reputation as an upland hunting destination that's been built on good habitat, not put-and-take hatchery birds. The disease concern was particularly acute during the height of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza outbreak. The disease is deadly, and pen-raised pheasant operations in Wyoming and Texas had to euthanize birds due to facility outbreaks or nearby infections in wild birds.
Ben Deeble of the Big Sky Upland Bird Association raised a concern that goes beyond simple HPAI transmission risk. "There's research that strongly suggests at least some upland bird populations are driven more than anything by parasite loads," he said. "And I've gotten no responses to my questions about what the prison is doing to keep parasite loads low. So there's a chance that they're turning out pen pheasants that are loaded with parasites out on the landscape. If I was a landowner with suitable habitat and the department asked to release these Deer Lodge pheasants on my place, I'd tell them no, because I don't think they can guarantee these are disease- and parasite-free birds."
The prison has taken steps to address these concerns. The facility has been certified by the Montana Department of Livestock as a National Poultry Improvement facility, a certification that comes with biosecurity measures including testing the birds every three months for avian flu. The birds have previously tested negative for the disease. Strict biosecurity measures are in place to protect the flock from diseases like avian flu, limiting access to authorized personnel only.
The Ethics of Manufactured Success
Perhaps the sharpest critique isn't financial or biological — it's philosophical. Thomas Baumeister, a former FWP wildlife biologist and vice chair of the Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, has been one of the program's most articulate opponents, and his objections cut to the heart of what hunting actually means.
"Presenting a fabricated put-and-take opportunity teaches to kill, rather than to hunt; it diminishes the experience," Baumeister wrote in opposition to the program. "Small, colorless, pen-raised birds without a wild instinct to rely on provide few challenges compared with wild pheasant hunting, and this scenario will fail to help new hunters by presenting them with unrealistic expectations."
"If you're a pheasant, and you can make it in Montana, you have something going for yourself," Baumeister said. "There's something special about the genetics of the birds we have here. There's some learned behavior. If you can make it in Montana, kudos for you, because this is not an Iowa cornfield." Baumeister's broader point: "Montana is one of the few states in the country that still has a healthy wild pheasant population." Stocking pen-raised birds in areas where wild populations already exist, he argues, undercuts exactly what makes Montana hunting worth recruiting people into in the first place.
"It's wishful thinking to put thousands of birds on the landscape and somehow sort of magically turn these teenage girls and boys into hunters," Baumeister told the commission. His argument isn't that youth hunting programs are wrong — it's that simulating a hunt is not the same as teaching one.
The Habitat Debate: Where Should the Money Go?
Underlying nearly every objection to Roosters for Recruitment is a competing vision for how limited wildlife dollars should be spent. VanDonsel from Pheasants Forever was measured in his critique: "We're a habitat organization, so it's unsurprising that we'd rather see resources devoted to habitat. That said, hunting opportunities for pen-raised birds can have positive outcomes in terms of hunter recruitment, retention, and reactivation. If I have a criticism of the Roosters for Recruitment program, it's how and where the releases are managed. I question whether we really need to plant pen-raised birds in areas of the state with strong wild populations."
Deeble of the Big Sky Upland Bird Association offered a pointed observation about Montana's conservation legacy: "Since Montana abandoned its hatchery, our biologists and habitat managers have prided ourselves on our capacity to not only grow good upland bird habitat but also to have public access to it. The proof is that Montana has become a destination for upland hunters from around the nation who come here for our wild birds, and more to the point, access to our wild birds."
Deeble has suggested that if the commission scraps the prison-bird program, funds could flow into FWP's Upland Game Bird Habitat Enhancement Program, which invests in both habitat quality and hunter access. In part as a response to public comment, FWP said it would ask the Legislature to make changes that could free up more dollars for upland bird enhancement. The enhancement account currently earmarks a portion of funding to pheasant releases intended to establish populations — a mechanism seldom used — and the agency planned to ask lawmakers to remove that requirement, which would free up dollars for habitat.
Crowding, Logistics, and Real-World Complications
Beyond the philosophical debate, the program has run into some plainly practical problems. One clue regarding the program's popularity occurred in 2023, when FWP provided the public with a schedule of when and where the birds would be released. That schedule was removed after a couple of weeks due to safety and crowding issues, with hunters flooding sites and waiting for the transport trailer. In 2024, FWP reverted to not disclosing in advance where releases would happen.
Five primary themes emerged from hunter surveys: frustration with crowding at popular release sites; inconsistency in habitat quality where birds were released; some hunters saying release sites were too far away while others went precisely because they were close; many hunters reporting seeing few or no pheasants at release sites; and widespread requests for better information on when and where birds would be released.
Hunters reported dissatisfaction with bird numbers, citing experiences where they saw few or no pheasants despite the location being listed as a stocked site. A recurring theme was skepticism about the survival, behavioral traits, or the effectiveness of releasing pen-raised birds as a hunter recruitment tool. About half the birds released are hens, which cannot be legally harvested — a detail that critics say compounds the inefficiency and further undermines the stated goal of giving young hunters tangible success.
The program also faced a number of early challenges, from supply chain delays for equipment to a national outbreak of avian influenza that required strict safety protocols, to simply learning the pheasant rearing process from scratch. FWP acknowledged that improving the quality of the pheasants released was an ongoing goal, as many birds from early releases lacked tails — a product of spacing and timing issues in the flight pens, one of the program's early learning curves.
Expanding the Footprint: Private and Federal Lands on the Table
Despite the objections and the operational bumps, the program's managers are pushing forward — and then some. The proposal before the Fish and Wildlife Commission would expand prison-reared bird plants to private and federal lands, a move that could double the number of release sites for pen-raised pheasants. That expansion into private land in particular has raised new questions, including the disease and parasite concerns that Deeble flagged regarding landowners who might be asked to host releases on ground where wild birds already exist.
In a sign of that expanding footprint, the Montana Department of Corrections expanded the pheasant raising program by delivering 1,000 roosters to Pine Hills Correctional Facility in Miles City in April. Montana Correctional Enterprises Bureau Chief Ross Wagner explained the logic: "Building a holdover facility in Miles City at the Pine Hills Facility helps both the volunteers delivering and the birds themselves. The birds will be sent to Miles City at an earlier age and date, raised until 20 weeks old, then moved to Wildlife Management Areas in Eastern Montana to help with recruitment and retention."
This year marks the fifth season of hatching eggs, with a goal of producing 35,000 birds. With the program continuing to expand each year, officials say more opportunities for incarcerated individuals will be created while furthering support for Montana's hunting community. The commission's upcoming vote on whether to authorize another five years — and an expanded geographic footprint — will determine whether this scaling continues or hits a political wall.
Historical Echoes: Montana Has Been Here Before
It's worth noting that Montana isn't breaking entirely new ground with a state-run pheasant program — it's actually revisiting old territory. Montana once raised pheasants in state-run facilities, but in 1982 that program was abandoned in favor of funding habitat for wild birds. The decision at the time reflected an emerging scientific consensus that habitat investment produced better, more durable returns than stocking. For more than four decades, that approach defined Montana's identity as an upland hunting state — and produced the strong wild populations that critics of the current program point to as evidence that the old strategy worked.
Some privately raised birds have continued to be released on private shooting preserves and onto private land through a lightly used state grant program, but the vast majority of Montana's pheasants are wild. The current program, in other words, represents a partial reversal of a philosophy that was deliberately chosen after the evidence pointed in a clear direction. That context matters to critics who argue that history is being repeated without a compelling reason to expect a different outcome.
Accountability and What Comes Next
The question of accountability for the program came up early in commission proceedings, and led to an amendment requiring FWP to report annually on spending and hunter surveys. Those reports have produced a mixed picture — participation numbers trend positive, but hunter satisfaction data is complicated by crowding, poor release timing, and the fundamental challenge of verifying whether any given recruit becomes a lifelong hunter or simply tries the sport once because the state made it unusually easy.
FWP spokesman Greg Lemon maintains that many of the program's benefits are less tangible than birds in bags, arguing that the partnership with the prison itself has become a key part of the program's value. The agency has cited early success as at least one factor in young people choosing to continue hunting, and notes that both upland and migratory bird license sales have declined elsewhere — making the positive numbers in Montana worth defending.
For the men inside Deer Lodge and Miles City who spend their days checking water lines and monitoring flight pens, the policy debate happening in Helena is distant. "It makes a world of difference to our morale and how we affect each other," said inmate Thomas Williams. Whether the commission votes to continue and expand the program, or whether critics finally succeed in redirecting the funding toward habitat, the question that Montana hunters and wildlife managers will be wrestling with long after that vote is the one at the core of every argument: what exactly are we trying to build, and for whom? The ring-necked pheasant doesn't have an opinion. But a lot of Montanans do, and this fight is far from over.
