October 15, 1999

     Pheasants Have Made their Marks

Ring-necked pheasants are related to quail, grouse, turkeys and domestic barnyard chickens.  These natives of Asia first arrived in the United States in 1882 when Judge Owen Denny, then Consul General at Shanghai, had several shipped to his brother's farm in Oregon.

The imported ring-neck made its debut in Minnesota in 1905 when the Game and Fish Department received 70 pairs from Wisconsin and Illinois.  The first state pheasant hunting season was in 1924 in Hennepin and Carver Counties when an estimated 300 roosters were killed.  Only seven years after the first season, 49 counties were open to hunting and over 1,000,000 roosters were killed.  Ring-necked pheasants fill a niche which had previously been filled by the prairie chicken.

In Minnesota, ring-necked pheasants are known to feast on 515 different kinds of food.  One of their favorites is corn.  The grain that it eats is largely waste grain picked up in stubble fields or along railroad tracks.  In spite of a ring-neck's ruggedness and resistance to the elements, it doesn't live long.  The ring-neck clan is always a young one; about 60 to 70 percent of the fall birds are less than 1 year old.  Only one in 10 will reach its second birthday and it is a wise old bird that survives for 4 years.