The Ring-Necked Pheasant in North America

Flushing an iridescent rooster pheasant is a memorable experience for upland game hunters all across the US. Unlike many other upland game bird species, the ring-necked pheasant is a non-native, introduced species that has been stocked and populated across many regions of the United States (not to mention internationally as well). This means that whether you live in Idaho or Connecticut, you probably have an opportunity to hunt this species in some capacity.

              The ring-necked pheasant is native to Asia, where its habitat is more open than its other pheasant cousins, which generally prefer a more forested habitat. In the 1800s, an American diplomat in Asia named Owen Denny had the idea to send some of the birds back to the United States to be released in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Unlike earlier, failed introductions in the 1700s, the transplants did well in their new habitat and established a breeding population. After that initial introduction in Oregon, other populations of pheasants were introduced and established across the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

              There are countless examples where an introduction of a non-native species, purposeful or not, has resulted in disaster for the native ecosystem. Ring-necked pheasants in North America may be an exception to the general rule as very few negative impacts from their presence on the landscape have been documented. One exception may be in areas where their range overlap with native prairie chicken species, where pheasants have been documented interrupting prairie chicken breeding behavior. Pheasants occupy a different ecological niche than the prairie chicken, however, and really thrived in the US during the twentieth century on the agricultural landscape.

              Pheasants were a locally common occurrence on the landscape in part due to the excellent suitability of the habitat available to them. In the early twentieth century, farms were smaller, with thick hedgerows, pastures and ponds providing cover for pheasants. As the agricultural landscape shifted, populations of pheasants and other upland game began to decline. In the 1960s and 1970s, Illinois hunters harvested a million pheasants per year. In the 2020-21 season, a little over 28,000 birds were harvested in Illinois. Conservation groups like Pheasants Forever contribute expertise and funds to managing habitat for pheasants, which in turn benefits many other species. Good hunting habitat for pheasants includes CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) land, a mixture of woody cover and grassland, hay fields, fields with forbs and small grains, and good thermal cover.

              The presence of wild birds on the landscape is largely dependent on habitat availability, as wild pheasants need brood-rearing, nesting and winter thermal cover in addition to the grassy fields we typically think of for pheasant hunting. Pheasant hunting is an important industry in Great Plains states like South Dakota, where hunters generated $219 million in 2020.

While some areas have the habitat to sustain wild reproducing pheasant populations, many state wildlife agencies breed and release pen-raised birds to provide hunting opportunity on public lands. Wisconsin, for example, releases ~75,000 birds statewide each hunting season. These pen-raised birds provide an enjoyable experience for hunters, but they have a low likelihood of surviving to breed. Multiple studies have compared wild and pen-raised pheasant survival, documenting the differences between the two cohorts of birds. An Idaho study showed that radio-marked wild hens were 10 times more likely to survive nesting season than their pen-raised counterparts, and 8 times more productive. A study from South Dakota showed that wild hens were ten times as successful as pen-raised hens at raising successful broods. While releasing pen-raised birds is a great way to provide a huntable population, good habitat is necessary to allow wild birds to reproduce.

Even though they are somewhat of an anomaly among species that attract conservation funds and effort, ring-necked pheasants have become an important part of American hunting culture. The time and effort that goes into managing habitat for this introduced species benefits a wide array of other species that have suffered population declines due to habitat loss. Go ahead and chase the ditch chickens knowing your license dollars are benefitting many more species than just the pheasant!

Sources:

Illinois DNR
Wisconsin DNR

South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks

Idaho Fish and Game

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