Memories Help to Nurture a New Flock of Pheasants

When Steve Shultz was growing up on the family ranch in Rolling Hills, he would look out the dining room window and see as many as 40 quail on the back lawn.

Today, there are few if any quail left in this rustic city of sumptuous homes, white rail fences, hills and canyons. And pheasants, which Shultz also recalls from his youth, vanished long ago.

Development has cleared land of natural vegetation and spawned a population of pet cats and dogs, cutting deeply into Rolling Hills’ heritage of birds and other wildlife. Shultz and others in the city would like to see this situation reversed.

“The loss of breeding habitat is the worst problem,” said Shultz, 37, who works as an executive with his family’s steel company in South Gate. “There is nowhere for the (wild bird) eggs to go undisturbed by cats and dogs. We’ve devastated the ground bird population.”

But if the odds are deadly for fledgling birds, Shultz, a member of the Wildlife Preservation Committee working to make things better for wildlife, believes that adult birds can survive and once again delight the eyes of residents.

Last year, he began raising ring-necked pheasants with the idea of releasing them into the community when they become adults. So far, he has turned four birds loose in his neighborhood on Johns Canyon Road and plans to release many more next spring.

The wildlife committee, which is supportive of Shultz’s project, was appointed by the Rolling Hills City Council to determine the extent of wildlife in that city and to suggest ways that it can be restored and preserved. Committee members and city officials said they were encouraged by the fact that 75% of residents responding to a recent survey strongly favored preserving wildlife on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Shultz has turned a one-time horse pen into a cage for 12 grown brown-and-gold pheasants that have sweeping tails and vivid red eye patches. They share the cage with a peacock and 10 African pygmy goats.

Chicks in Brooder

About 60 speckled pheasant chicks--offspring of the 12 adults--fill a brooder and the floor of an adjoining shed. Chicks emerge from eggs in a small hatchery Shultz keeps in the kitchen of the old ranch bunkhouse, which is part of the enlarged and modernized home he shares with his wife Cathi and three children.

As a youngster, Shultz had no trouble falling in love with the outdoors and animals.

After World War II, his parents bought the 50-acre Rancho Elastico, which dated from the 1880s. The tents the early ranchers used could be moved and enlarged--stretched like elastic--and that gave the place its name.

Shultz raised birds as a teen-ager, and said he started thinking about raising pheasants three years ago. “I wanted to help promote an interest in something I grew up with,” he said. “When I walked, I’d run into one of them.”

He plans a similar project with quail and is expecting delivery of 50 quail chicks within two weeks.

Hopes to Release Birds

Shultz said he hopes to release 70 adult pheasants ultimately, turning them loose in rustic areas.

He said he expects that one-third of the birds will be lost in the first year “to dogs, cars, illness and snakes. Foxes will do their bit, too.” At the same time, Shultz said, the pheasants are fighters that can defend themselves. He said they “have claws and spurs and can rip you up pretty good.”

But Tom Paulek, a wildlife manager with the California Department of Fish and Game in Long Beach, is skeptical that the project will work. “If the habitat were suitable (for pheasant and quail), they would be there,” Paulek said. “There would be no need to release them.”

He said Rolling Hills would do better “to improve the habitat.”

Project in Early Stages

“We’ll see what happens,” Shultz said, conceding that while the birds in his neighborhood appear to be doing well, the enterprise is still in its early stages. “If a year later there are none, we’ll have to change our plan,” he said.

Shultz agreed with Paulek that habitat is vital, and one objective of the Wildlife Preservation Committee is to encourage people to landscape with plants that flower or have berries to provide food for birds and other wild animals.

When land is cleared for fire protection, he said, “some islands of brush” could be left to sustain bird life. He also said people can better control their pets, putting bells or jingling tags on dog and cat collars and locking dogs up at night.

“We’ll never get things back the way they were,” Shultz said, “but we can make it less dangerous for animals.”