ORIGINAL: bawanajim

Is South Dakota in China?

Author: Randy Sell, Research Assistant
Department of Agricultural Economics, NDSU
Ringneck pheasants bring to mind the hearty cackle of a flushed rooster in the fall, but pheasants may also be raised in a domestic environment. In fact, because the pheasant spends the greater part of its life on the ground, it readily adapts to life in confinement.
The ringneck pheasant is not native to this continent. It was first introduced from China to the Willamette Valley of Oregon in 1881. Since that time nearly all states have attempted to establish ringnecks.
Pheasants were stocked in North Dakota in 1910. Private citizens, with help from the Game and Fish Department, continued stocking efforts until pheasants were well established in southeastern North Dakota. Wild pheasant populations are subject to extreme fluctuation due primarily to the fluctuating availability of suitable cover and the fluctuating severity of winter weather. North Dakota's first pheasant hunting season was in 1931. Pheasant season closed because of the lack of birds only in 1953, 1966 and 1969.