Pheasant hunters flock to Taber
Annual Taber Pheasant Festival taking place
Canada’s biggest hunting festival is back for its seventh year, along with a lavish culinary affair. The Taber Pheasant Festival made its seventh appearance this week and has hunters across the province excited to attend once again.
Vice-president of Alberta Conservation Association, Ken Kranrod, says this week-long festival is a great event not only for hunters but also to stress the importance of conservation throughout Alberta and the role that hunters play.
“It’s a great event for hunters to attend because it showcases the importance of hunting and how it relates to conservation, agriculture and economics.
“Hunters and anglers really drive conservation,” added Kranrod of why this festival is such a great event for the community. “The fact is that we do not and cannot do it alone. We rely on a vast amount of partnership with other conservation organizations, hunters, anglers, local businesses and private landowners and individuals to make conservation possible across the province.”
The week-long festival, which was initiated in southern Alberta in 2010 by the ACA, has gained popularity and earned the name of the country’s biggest annual hunting event. As 5,100 birds are released across 40 different locations throughout the Municipal District of Taber, hunters rejoice in the opportunity to fine-tune their skills, enjoy the company of other like-minded people and show off their talents.
With novice hunts running last weekend and regular hunts throughout this week, Kranrod says this festival has something for everyone.
“This is also a great event for hunters to bring kids or firsttime hunters to, since we have the novice hunts that are geared towards kids and first-time hunters. They provide a very safe introduction to pheasant hunting. They’re also a great way to show people that hunting is not what you think it is; it’s a great activity to be involved in and we show them how to be successful in it and enjoy it.”
Although all participants are encouraged to get outside and have fun, there are rules to be followed which include any one hunter enrolled in the festival can only hunt once a day and a total of three times during the week of the festival.
These rules are put in place to keep the weekend enjoyable for everyone, especially with the growing success of southern Alberta’s largest pheasant festival.
“Forty separate landowners agreed to be part of the festival and let people hunt on their land. This just reaffirms that hunting is important and also showcases partnerships involved in conservation,” says Kranrod.
“Essentially, the festival has become bigger, more established and more diverse. It still holds true to what it was in its very first year, but now we have more sites and more birds, more partnerships with landowners, many more partnerships with Alberta businesses, as well as being way better known throughout the hunting community and Alberta.”
However, it’s not just the hunting that brings hundreds to Taber in October, but the lure of multiple activities taking place for many to enjoy, from guest speakers, demonstrations and interactive social activities to the main course of the festival’s culinary event. This fantastic addition to the festival delights the taste buds of all who attend as local chefs Sean Cutler, Mark Ingram and Alan Daoud cook up pheasant treats.
“What we were finding is during the week after the sun goes down there was kind of a lull so we wanted to add events. The Culinary Guest Chefs is one of most successful,” says Kranrod.
“These chefs come from Calgary and they prepare pheasants in a variety of ways and then the guests can interact with the chefs and get the recipes. It adds a whole new element and dimension to pheasant hunting that’s really great.”
With the Pheasant Festival gaining more and more traction each year, it’s not just the hunters who benefit, but it also adds great economic value to the town of Taber. With its growing popularity in Alberta and bordering provinces, the festival has gained traction by attracting people from all over for the event, either through participation or through sponsorship. In fact, in 2014 the event saw an increase in input and facilitation from local businesses, organizations and residents than ever before, giving the festival a better sense of community and local ownership.
“Local businesses really notice it on their balance sheets,” says Kranrod. “Business goes up, and now for some businesses within Taber it has become their busiest week of the year and that’s great. It’s very important to ACA, because vast majority of conservation in Alberta occurs in rural areas.”