Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 297, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1910 — PHEASANTS PEST IN FIELD [ARTICLE]

PHEASANTS PEST IN FIELD

Toothsome Birds Thrive Under Game Law of Washington at Great Cost to Farmers. Seattle, Wash. —Pheasants are a plague in the Nisqually river valley, and farmers are up in arms, not against the pheasants, but the members of the legislature who made the closed season law. The toothsome birds have eaten up the potatoes and much small grain and even attacked the apples and other fruits. It is reported from that section of the state that these white-collared, vari-colored birds wing down upon the farms in large flocks. They scratch out the tubers and pick out eyes and centers, leaving but a shell of the former potato. The loss caused by the birds is large, and because of the semi-domesticated instinct of these birds they do not fear scarecrows, dogs or firing of explosives. The farmers in their petition to have an open season declared state that they do not care to go gunning ■in their corn and potato patches when a dead pheasant means SSO fine and court costs. The population of the Nisqually river valley is united on the petition to have an open season of two months declared, that hunters may have an opportunity of thinning the pheasant stock.