Pheasant Program

Bill Tompkins was serving as Allegany County Sheriff in 2007 when he had an idea to expand the Inmate Work Program at the county jail he oversaw. He envisioned a program that would have multiple benefits, both within the jail and on the outside. Inmates would raise the pheasants for release in the wild, and pheasant hunters would have the opportunity to pursue the birds reintroduced into an area that the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) had ceased stocking. The first ring-necked pheasants were obtained in 2008 and the Allegany County Pheasant Program was born.