Efforts to introduce ring-necked pheasants failed in state
It is March 1882. A ship called the Isle of Butte, inbound from Shanghai, China, arrives at the docks in Portland, Oregon. Inside the vessel are dozens of colorful feathered immigrants.
The male birds sport long showy tails and flashy hues — metallic greens and purples on the head, a crimson patch encircling the eyes, iridescent copper-and-gold body feathers and a distinctive white neck ring. By comparison, the buff-brown females are quite plain.
“Pheasants?” asked one of the stevedores as he unloaded the birds’ crates. “Never heard of them.”
Neither had anyone else. But soon the whole country would know about these beautiful Asian gamebirds known as ring-necked pheasants.
The man who had the birds imported was Owen Denny, the U.S. consul general in Shanghai at the time, America’s highest-ranking diplomat in Asia. While working in China, he had developed a keen interest in ring-necked pheasants, which were esteemed by hunters for their sportiness and delicious meat. Because pheasants thrived in the open country near Shanghai, Denny thought they also would do well in the climate of his home state of Oregon, and he arranged to have several shipments imported.
Others before Denny had tried to establish various species of non-native pheasants in the United States. One of the first was a governor of New York who released pheasants in the Empire State in 1733. These birds perished, however, as did those brought to the country later by George Washington and Ben Franklin’s son-in-law, Richard Bach. For the next century, America remained pheasantless.
Denny’s birds thrived, however, quickly establishing themselves in the wild. Denny released more birds in 1884, and that helped the ring-necked pheasants flourish in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, and then Oregon as a whole and into Washington. In 1892, only 10 years after the first pheasants were released, Oregon held its inaugural pheasant-hunting season, and sportsmen killed 50,000 of the birds on opening day.
Many other states expressed a sudden interest in this gamebird bonanza. Oregon provided much seed stock, but many states, especially in the East, imported their own pheasants.
“Pheasants came here from all over Europe and Asia and met in a kind of giant genetic melting pot in the Midwest,” said Russ Sewell, who worked as a wildlife biologist at Pheasants Forever, a conservation organization based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Although North America’s pheasants are called ringnecks because of their distinctive white collar, most are a mixture of several subspecies.
The flashy foreigner multiplied beyond anyone’s expectations. By the 1930s, pheasants were firmly established in most of their current range: abundant on the northern Great Plains, widespread in the interior of the West and common across the Midwest through much of the Atlantic Coast.
At least 25 states now have sizable ringneck populations. South Dakota, which has millions, has made the ringnecked pheasant its state bird. Estimates place the current U.S. population at about 14.5 million birds.
Few of our citizens know it, but Arkansas was among the 40 states that tried introducing pheasants in those early decades. During the late 1920s and early ’30s, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission employees raised pheasants at the Rogers State Game Farm in Northwest Arkansas. Those birds were distributed to district game wardens, who planted the pheasants in selected areas. During the first year of operation, the Game Farm distributed 600 eggs and 580 pheasants. By the second year, the volume grew to 1,220 eggs and 1,559 birds.
In a report covering the 1926-28 biennium, the commission extolled the farm’s progress, saying it had “made a good showing,” in spite of weather-related problems. Unusually heavy and extended rainfall with occasional heavy hail caused the loss of several hundred birds. “A fair production was had, and each county received its quota of some 35 birds” from 2,230 pheasants and 1,424 eggs in 1926-27 and 2,213 birds and 500 eggs in 1927-28.
Facing criticism from opponents of the stocking effort, the commission defended its pheasant program, saying in its biennial report: “Since the department started the introduction of ringneck pheasants four years ago, there has been much speculation as to whether this species could ever be successfully acclimated to our covers. At this time, the undertaking is largely experimental, and it will doubtless be several years before results can be accurately predicted. Reports during the past two years have been much more favorable than those of the first half of the period.
“Pennsylvania, Iowa and other states report discouraging results during the early years …, but as time rolls along, this gamebird surely gains ground.”
As the program continued, the commission selected areas of prime pheasant habitat where it concentrated stocking efforts. A report covering the 1928-30 biennium states: “The State Game Farm experienced two very successful seasons, as a result of which the covers of Arkansas received a total of 4,625 ringneck pheasants. … A different plan for distributing birds was followed during the past two years. … Some six or eight suitable sections of the state were selected, and all of the birds produced from the Game Farm were planted in those sections. It seems reasonable that a substantial number of areas would, in the long run, show better results than a very limited number … planted in each county of the state.” The commission added: “As the birds become somewhat established in the areas selected, other sections will be given attention.”
Unfortunately, the Great Depression ended the commission’s pheasant program. Expenses of operating the Game Farm could no longer be justified, so the pheasant-rearing operation closed in 1932, and the Legislature authorized the farm’s sale in 1939.
In the two years before the Game Farm closed, almost 5,000 pheasants were released at locales throughout the state. The progeny of those birds never thrived, however, and the few wild-hatched pheasants that resulted from those transplants quickly died out.
More recent attempts to stock pheasants in Arkansas also ended in failure. The reason for the lack of success remained a mystery for many years, but we now know that high springtime temperatures in our region may prevent embryo development in pheasant eggs. No Southeastern state has been successful in its efforts to establish wild populations of ringnecks.
That’s not to say you can’t hunt pheasants today in Arkansas and other parts of the Southeast. Many private game farms operate put-and-take pheasant-hunting operations where, for a fee, you can hunt farm-raised ringnecks that are released specifically for that purpose. No hunting license is required, and seasons run throughout most of the year.
Hunting pen-raised birds isn’t quite the same as hunting the warier wild pheasants found in other parts of the country, but it’s a fun way to put some of these good-eating gamebirds on your dinner table. For information on Arkansas game farms where pheasants can be hunted, visit www.ultimatepheasanthunting.com/USA/Arkansas.