12/16/2009:
Hunters in North Dakota are well aware of the variety of the state's game birds, both native and imported. As early as 1910, Chinese, ring-necked pheasants were released in parts of the state, partly to introduce another game bird and partly to replace a significantly reduced population of prairie chickens. The stock for breeding these pheasants came from Oregon, where a population of birds had been introduced from Asia. It was noted that these original birds had difficulty in surviving the rigors of a North Dakota winter. So, on this date in 1937, 250 Mongolian pheasants were released to strengthen the strain of pheasants in the state. The Mongolian pheasant was more adaptable to the harsh conditions and would crossbreed with the Chinese variety to help with the survival rate. Although this effort met with good results, over the years, on up to the present time, it has still been necessary to stock almost a quarter of a million pheasants in various parts of the state. In 1923, the Hungarian partridge was introduced and it rapidly multiplied, appearing in every county in North Dakota by the 1930s.
The success of these projects encouraged the State Game and Fish Department to introduce another game bird. So, they also released 150 Chukar partridges, birds native to the highlands of India. These birds were hatched under the supervision of the Game and Fish Department and released mostly in the area of the Killdeer and Turtle Mountains in an attempt to match their native habitat in Asia. Larger than the Hungarian partridge, the chukar resembles the mourning dove in color, except the wings have black bars. In the seventy years following this first release, only a very small population was maintained in the state, mostly in the southwest near Bismarck and Dickinson.
Although the introduction of the chukar partridge was not too successful, the Hungarian partridge and the ring-necked pheasant have created an additional economic industry for North Dakota as each year hundreds of hunters take to the fields in search of these lively birds.
Dakota Datebook written by Jim Davis
Sources:
The Ward County Independent December 17, 1937
North Dakota Outdoors 54(7):5-20. 1992.