Pheasants Threaten Greater Prairie-Chickens in Illinois

Found in remarks concerning establishment of the 407-acre Jasper County Prairie Chicken Sanctuary Nature Preserve in February 1972 (excerpt):

Fewer than 100 prairie chickens remain in Illinois. One problem that threatens the existence of the prairie chicken [Tympanuchus cupido] is the introduced ring-necked pheasant [Phasianus colchicus], native to Asia. The pheasant parasitizes the prairie chicken nest with its own eggs, which then hatch earlier than the chicken’s. The confused prairie chicken hen leaves her nest with the young pheasants, unaware that her parasitized nest will not produce any young prairie chickens to repopulate the sanctuary.

This is one of two prairie chicken sanctuaries in Illinois; the other is located in Marion County.

Following the establishment of these preserves in 1972, prairie-chicken numbers soared—to 400 birds in Jasper County by the early 1970s, and to 230 birds in Marion County by 1982. But by spring 1994, the Jasper County population had declined to six Illinois cocks plus two translocated Minnesota cocks. In Marion County, the number of cocks ranged from 9-18 from 1992-1996.

Once again, one of the “factors documented to have decimated prairie numbers” was “intense interactions with pheasants” (excerpt):

Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) sanctuary managers have successfully controlled nest predators and pheasants in recent years. So far, genetic management via translocation of prairie chickens from large populations in Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska also appears successful. From only 6 Illinois cocks in spring 1994, numbers increased to 70 cocks by spring 1996 on at least four well-established booming grounds in Jasper County.

Sources:

Illinois Department of Natural Resources. No date. Jasper County Prairie Chicken Sanctuary Nature Preserve. Illinois Nature Preserves Commission.
http://dnr.state.il.us/INPC/Directory/Sitefiles/Area8/JASJA.htm

Illinois Department of Natural Resources. No date. Marion County Prairie Chicken Sanctuary Nature Preserve. Illinois Nature Preserves Commission.
http://dnr.state.il.us/INPC/Directory/Sitefiles/Area8/JASJA.htm

Westemeier, Ron. 1997 (January-February). Grassland for prairie chickens: how much is enough? Illinois Natural History Survey Reports.
http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/inhsreports/jan-feb97/chicks.html

Timeline of Oklahoma Bird Introduction Events

From the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation timeline (excerpts):

1911 – Ring-necked Pheasant first introduced

1931 – Game Farm opens at Darlington

1948 - Program to re-establish Wild Turkey populations initiated

1949 - First Rio Grand Wild Turkeys released (Harper County)

1960 - Autumn marked the State's first fall Wild Turkey season

1966 – First attempt at introducing giant Canada Goose

1971 – Wild Turkey restocking program successfully re-established the eastern Wild Turkey throughout much of the State east of U.S. Highway 69

1980 – Giant Canada Goose introduction

1982 – First successful introduction of giant Canada Goose

1996 – Darlington Game Farm closed

Pheasant Eggs Hatched by Bobwhite

The Ring-necked Pheasant has long been known to occasionally parasitize the nests of native North American birds, including those of the Northern Bobwhite. Westemeier and Esker (1989) described (.pdf) the first known instance of a bobwhite nest apparently parasitized by pheasant(s) in which the pheasant eggs hatched at the expanse of the bobwhite eggs.

Of 281 bobwhite nests examined from 1970-1988 on a study site in Jasper County, Illinois, only one was known to have been parasitized by pheasants. In that nest, four pheasant eggs hatched from a bobwhite nest containing 15 intact bobwhite eggs and seven pheasant eggs.

Citation:
Westemeir, Ronald L., and Terry L. Esker. 1989. An unsuccessful clutch of Northern Bobwhites with hatched pheasant eggs. Wilson Bulletin 101: 640-642.

Aldo Leopold and Ring-necked Pheasants in Illinois

This story by Joe McFarland is from the December 2002 issue of Outdoor Illinois. Excerpts:

In Illinois, the first recognized successful release of pheasants came when a pair was released in the spring of 1890 near Macomb in west-central Illinois. A flock of nearly full-grown young pheasants was observed in the fall, and that success was all the evidence needed to convince sportsmen that pheasants were the game of the future.

In 1904, Illinois became the first state in the nation to open a state-operated game farm. Eggs and chicks were distributed to landowners, with some 36,723 pheasants having been released by the time Leopold began his 1929 study.

Citation:

McFarland, Joe. 2002 (December). The pheasant century. Outdoor Illinois 10(12): 6-8.

Ring-necked Pheasants Arrive in North America

The State Handbook and Guide provides a concise history of the origin of the Ring-necked Pheasant in North America:

It wasn’t until 1733 that the pheasant appeared in North America, when several pairs of the black-necked strain were introduced in New York. Other pheasant varieties were released in New Hampshire and New Jersey later in the 18th century. Not until 1881, when Judge O. N. Denny released some 100 pairs of Chinese ring-necks in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, did the pheasant really gain a foothold in the United States. Since then, pheasants have been propagated and released by government agencies, clubs and individuals, and for all practical purposes are established everywhere on the continent that suitable habitat exists.

The China or Denny Pheasant in Oregon

A brief review by J. A. Allen of a booklet by William T. Shaw on a history of the introduction of Ring-necked Pheasant in Oregon.

Releases of birds into the Willamette Valley of Oregon in the early 1880s represented the first successful introductions of the Ring-necked Pheasant in North America.

Sources:

Allen, J. A. 1908. [Review of] Shaw’s ‘The China or Denny pheasant in Oregon.’ Auk 25: 241-242.

Shaw, William T. 1908. The China or Denny pheasant in Oregon, with notes on the native grouse of the Pacific Northwest. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 24 pp.

Ring-necked Pheasant Restoration in Minnesota

A long-range pheasant plan (.pdf) approved by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in 2005 “describes strategies to achieve a pheasant harvest of 450,000 roosters [25 percent above the 1987-2000 average] primarily by capitalizing on a suite of well-funded farm programs available through 2008.”

Pheasant harvests since 1964 have averaged 65-75 percent lower than during the peak years of 1931-1964 (see below). The reason for the decline and failed recovery is attributed to severe winter weather in the mid-1960s followed by dramatic changes in land use that reduced the availability of food and cover for pheasants.

Selected excerpts from the plan:

Pheasants were first stocked in Minnesota in 1905, but none of the released birds survived. A self-sustaining population was established in 1916-18 after 4,000 adults were released and another 6,000 eggs were given to farmers and hunters interested in rearing pheasants.

By 1922, pheasants had been released in 78 of the state’s 87 counties, and the population was growing rapidly. The altered prairie landscape that was too intensively farmed for sharp-tailed grouse and prairie chickens proved ideal for ring-necked pheasants.

In 1931, less than 15 years after releases of a few thousand birds, the fall pheasant population in Minnesota yielded a harvest of 1 million roosters (estimated population of over 4 million pheasants), and harvest averaged that level through 1964.

Figure 1 (p. 3) shows trends in pheasant harvest, 1924-2000, and Figure 2 (p. 12) shows the distribution of pheasants in Minnesota as of 2003.

Citation: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. 2005 (March 8). Long range plan for the Ring-necked Pheasant in Minnesota. 24 pp.

An Original Resident?

On a Web site about watchable wildlife developed by Travel Montana, clicking the “What to Watch” tab takes us to a page that invites us to “Meet Montana’s Original Residents.” That page links to a brief account of the Ring-necked Pheasant, a nonnative introduced resident of Montana. The account grudgingly notes that:

Ring-necked pheasants are not native Montanans. They were imported from China to the United States in the mid-1800’s, but that hasn’t stopped them from making themselves right at home in Montana.

Gamebird Stockings in Nebraska

The following excerpts are taken from 100 Years of Game and Parks History, a timeline of significant events and accomplishments in the history of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (formerly the Nebraska Game and Fish Commission), 1901-2000:

1931 – The Commission discontinued its three-year wild turkey stocking program along the Missouri River, “owing to the fact that it is extremely difficult to obtain wild birds for stocking.” A total of 253 turkey pairs had been stocked.

1937 – The Commission established a game farm near Madison to raise pheasants, chukar partridge and bobwhite quail for stocking. A total of 2,700 birds were raised the first year. Two years later, the Commission established a second, smaller, game farm at Niobrara State Park.

1958 – During the winter of 1958-59, 28 Merriam’s wild turkeys obtained from Wyoming and South Dakota were released in the Cottonwood Creek drainage of Sioux County.

1961 – Rio Grande turkeys were stocked in central and southern Nebraska.

1963 – Chukar partridge were released in the Panhandle.

1970 – The last release of chukar partridge was made. Over six years, 27,456 chukars were released in an attempt to establish it as a game bird. Subsequently, the project was deemed unsuccessful.

In summary, there was limited stocking of Northern Bobwhite and Ring-necked Pheasants beginning in the 1930s, successful stocking of Wild Turkeys of nonnative origin beginning in 1959, and unsuccessful stocking of nonnative Chukar in the 1970s.

Quail and Pheasant Stocking in New Jersey

This article appeared on the Mid-Atlantic Game & Fish website some time prior to the 2003-2004 hunting season. An excerpt:

According to statistics from the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW), the state annually releases 50,000-plus [ring-necked] pheasants, which are raised at the state’s Rockport Pheasant Farms. In addition, 11,000-plus [northern] bobwhite quail are stocked on two wildlife management areas (WMAs) in the southern portion of the state, namely Greenwood Forest and Peaslee WMAs. These stocking figures have remained pretty consistent for the last decade or more, with the exception of some lean years in the late ‘90s, when the DFW faced a budget crisis.

Quail stocking in the Garden State has also changed in recent years. Bobwhite quail were originally raised at the Forked River Game Farm. The game farm was gradually phased out and produced its last birds in 1996. The DFW now purchases quail for stocking from private in-state game farms. Buying the birds from private game farms saves the state money while providing wingshooters with a healthier stock of birds as well.

The schedule (.pdf) of quail and pheasant releases for 2006-2007 indicates a marked reduction in the number of birds being released (i.e., 5,200 Northern bobwhite and 2,000 Ring-necked Pheasants). The reason for the reductions in the number of birds being stocked is not immediately available. It would be interesting to know percentage of these birds are bagged by hunters.

Impacts of Introduced Game Birds in Hawaii

In the high-elevation shrublands of Haleakala National Park on Mauai, Cole et al. (1995) found that Ring-necked Pheasants and Chukars “occupy, at least partially, an ecological niche once held by now-extinct or rare birds, and they appear not to be significant competitors with the endangered Nene. The role of these alien birds in facilitating seed dispersal and germination of native plant species is beneficial in restoring degraded ecosystems." The abstract is available here.

Citation: Cole, F. Russell, Lloyd L. Loope, Arthur C. Medeiros, Jane A. Raikes, and Cynthis S. Wood. 1995. Conservation implications of introduced game birds in high-elevation Hawaiian shrubland. Conservation Biology 9: 306-313.

Ring-necked Pheasants in South Dakota

An excerpt from Mary Anderson's account of the Ring-necked Pheasant in The Natural Source: an educator’s guide to South Dakota’s natural resources, edited by Dr. Erika Tallman, Director of Environmental Education at Northern State University:

The first successful introduction of the pheasant into the United States occurred in Oregon in 1892. Many attempts were made to introduced the bird into South Dakota, but the first successful introduction occurred in Spink County in 1908. A. E. Cooper and E. L. Ebbert, adjoining farmers south of Doland, released the pheasants into the wild. In 1911, the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks released approximately 250 pairs in Spink and Beadle counties. Since that time, the South Dakota pheasant population has fluctuated from a high of 16 million birds to a low of 1.4 million birds. In 1993, the pheasant population was estimated to be around 5 million birds.

South Dakota Pheasant Trivia:

(1) South Dakota honored its most famous avian immigrant in 1943 by proclaiming the Ring-necked Pheasant the State Bird.

(2) Redfield, South Dakota, proclaims itself the "pheasant capital of the world."

(3) Ring-necked Pheasants outnumber humans in South Dakota by nearly 7 to 1.

Ring-necked Pheasant Leaflet

The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service published this habitat management leaflet in 1999. Excerpt:

The ring-necked pheasant is a ground-dwelling, gallinaceous (chicken-like) bird of Asia first introduced into the United States prior to the 1800s. By the 1880s, wild ring-necked pheasants had become established in sustainable breeding populations within the United States and have remained one of the most popular and sought after upland game birds in central and northern regions of the country. . . . Also characteristic of the ring-neck is its ability to share similar niches with many native grassland and farmland community wildlife species. One exception has been its interaction with native prairie chickens – pheasant males can disrupt prairie chicken leks and hens may lay eggs in prairie chicken nests. Consequently, efforts to repatriate prairie chickens in some areas may require prior removal of pheasants.

This leaflet contains much detailed information related to habitat management for this species.

Citation: Natural Resources Conservation Service. 1999 (October). Ring-necked Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus). USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Fish and Wildlife Habitat Management Leaflet 10, 12 pp.

Ring-necked Pheasants in Wisconsin

In the period 2001-2007, “over 400,000 pheasants [were] stocked on public hunting grounds” by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, as reported here.