Five minutes after the Pennsylvania Game Commission released a couple hundred pheasants into the wild near Loyalhanna Creek on Thursday morning, the crack of the first gunshot echoed across the meadow.

Each year, commission staff release “bonus” pheasants, left over from their annual breeding program. In anticipation of losing pheasants to bird flu outbreaks, land management group supervisor Zebulun Campbell said breeders will often try to boost the overall population. “Bonus” birds are released toward the end of pheasant hunting season, which runs through the end of February.

Cody Schmidt, 26, of Greensburg has spent the past three years hunting pheasant and was waiting at a small parking area off Oasis Road along with several other hunters when the game commission arrived.

He was excited to get his 11-month-old chocolate Labrador retriever, Scout, some experience hunting pheasant.

“It’s more about the dog work than anything else,” Schmidt said. “He’s my first hunting dog, and it’s awesome to watch him work.”

Campbell said the commission released about 260 pheasants in Derry Township and would be releasing 500 total throughout Westmoreland County. The majority of the birds are brownish-gray females, along with a handful of the more colorful males.

“We’re releasing an overall total of about 1,800 across southwestern Pennsylvania,” he said.

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