Introduced Birds of Illinois

Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus), Greater Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido), Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), and Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) are all native to Illinois, but native populations have been supplemented to a greater or lesser extent by introductions or reintroductions, as described here (excerpts):

• Ruffed Grouse in NW Illinois may represent a remnant native population or wild dispersals from Wisconsin or Iowa. A very small population in Pope County may be the result of late 1950’s or early 1960’s releases of wild-trapped birds. All other populations in Union and Alexander county or extreme western Jo Daviess County are the results of wild-trapped birds released during the period 1982-94 and are not considered established.
  
  
• During the summers of 1991-98 Greater Prairie-Chickens from out-of-state were introduced into Illinois’ only remaining populations in Jasper and Marion counties.
  
  
• The native Wild Turkey population in Illinois was extirpated in the early 1900’s. Turkeys were first reintroduced in the Shawnee Forest in 1959 from out-of-state stock. Once established there, Illinois birds have been and continue to be introduced to unpopulated locations throughout the state.
  
  
• Peregrine Falcon was extirpated as a breeding species; the current breeding population is reintroduced.

Nine other species are known from established in Illinois solely as a result of human introductions: Mute Swan (Cygnus olor), Gray Partridge (Perdix perdix), Ring-necked Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), Rock Pigeon (Columba livia), Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto), Monk Parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus), European Starling (Sturnus vulgarus), House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus), and House Sparrow (Passer domesticus).

Source:
Illinois Ornithological Society. No date. Birds of Illinois.
http://www.illinoisbirds.org/illinois_list.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

Wild Turkey Restoration in Iowa

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources provides information about Wild Turkey restoration here (excerpts):

. . . wild turkeys were eliminated from Iowa by the early 1900’s due to habitat loss and partly because of uncontrolled subsistence hunting.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) began experimenting with turkey restoration in 1920 using pen-reared birds. Releases were made over the next 18 years but all releases were uniform failures. By 1960 no known wild turkey populations existed in Iowa.

The first attempts at releasing transplanted wild turkeys were in the early 1960’s. Rio Grande and Merriam’s subspecies were released at several sites during the 1960’s but ultimately their poor adaptation to Iowa’s oak-hickory forest led to population failures for both subspecies.

The first release of Eastern wild turkeys was in 1966 in Lee County. The population response of these turkeys was phenomenal . . .

Since the initial 1965 release, 3,063 Eastern wild turkeys have been released at 220 sites at a stocking rate of approximately 3 adult gobblers and 10 hens per site. Nearly all sites are considered successful, . . .

Some in-state translocations continue, but the majority of trapping effort is to assist other states in their restoration efforts. During the 1994-95 season we shipped 401 turkeys to Texas...and 172...to Kentucky. During the 1995-96 season we shipped 404 turkeys to Texas...109 to Louisiana...and 92...to Kentucky. During the 1999-2000 trapping season, Iowa shipped 363 turkeys to Washington...and 61 to South Dakota.... In addition, 163...birds were moved in-state.

But as reported here (.pdf, excerpt):

Restoration efforts ended in 2001 with the last release site occurring in Linn County.

Additional information about Wild Turkeys in Iowa can be found here.

Sources:

Iowa Department of Natural Resources. 2004 (December). Wild Turkey restoration. (link)

Iowa Department of Natural Resources. No date. Wild Turkeys [harvest and population status through 2004]. 48 pp. (link)

Cold Turkey

Apparently spurred by the demands of turkey hunters for continued northward expansion of Wild Turkey populations by means of intentional introductions, the Northern Wild Turkey Workshop was held in Bloomington, Minnesota, January 16-18, 2003, under sponsorship of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the National Wild Turkey Foundation, and the Minnesota Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Foundation.

The published proceedings (.pdf) consists of 36 papers, mostly 1- or 2-page expanded abstracts, organized into the following 6 sections:

Introduction (2 papers)

Transplanting Wild Turkeys North of Their Ancestral Range (9)

Research on Wild Turkeys in Northern Latitudes (8)

Northern Wild Turkey Populations, Problems, and Hunting Seasons (6)

State and Provincial Agency Reports (7)

Appendix (3)

Citation: Kimmel, Richard O., Wendy J. Krueger, and Tonya K. Klinkner (compilers). 2003. Northern Wild Turkey Workshop. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Farmland Wildlife Research Group, Madelia, Minnesota. 42 pp.

Wild Turkey Restoration in Nebraska

Native populations of the Wild Turkey were extirpated from Nebraska by about 1915, and an initial 3-year effort to stock turkeys along the Missouri River was discontinued in 1931 “owing to the fact that it is extremely difficult to obtain wild birds for stocking.”

This document from the Nebraska Department of Wildlife and Parks’ Wildlife Species Guide describes the modern history of Wild Turkey restoration in Nebraska, which began in 1959 with the release of Merriam’s turkeys trapped in South Dakota and Wyoming.

The following maps illustrate the distribution of release sites of various subspecies and the present-day range of the Wild Turkey in Nebraska:

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.