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Show Pheasants Should Be 0 More Plentiful With More "Planting" Program An estimated 20,000 pheasants will be planted by the state fish and game department this year, doubling the normal "planting", Ross Leonard, state fish & game director, announced this week. In normal years the state plants between eight and eleven thousand thous-and birds. On the basis that Utah's hunters kill up to 125,000 pheasants pheas-ants legally from this stock, it can be assumed that the shooting this fall should be greatly improved. Hundreds of brooder pheasants are nesting at the Springville game farm, and as soon as the eggs are hatched, many of them will be transplanted to the brooder project proj-ect at the new state prison and the Ogden bay project. Plans were completed last week for the state to take over the pheasant farm site between Helper Help-er and Price and construction already al-ready has begun on the brooder houses and power facilities. In addition to the regular crop o eggs taken from trapped pheasants in the state, 1,000 pheasant eggs have been purchased from outside the state. In an effort to protect this "planted" stock and make the Utah pheasant more of a "native" bird in contrast to the transplanted transplant-ed hand raised species, Director Leonard has revived the program of installing bird sanctuaries in the state where parent birds and their broods may be safe to grow up naturally. |