The pheasants left China aboard the Otago, a ship that reached Port Townsend on March 13, 1881 | Wikimedia Commons
In 1881, while serving as the United States consul general in Shanghai, he arranged for about 60 ring-necked pheasants to be shipped from China to Washington state. Denny sent more birds the following year, and the 1882 release in Oregon’s Willamette Valley became the first successful introduction of ring-necked pheasants in the United States, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife . The pheasants left China aboard the Otago , a ship that reached Port Townsend on March 13, 1881. Oregon eventually opened its first pheasant hunting season in 1892, and reports from the period said hunters killed about 50,000 birds on the first day.
Because he liked eating them, judge Owen Nickerson Denny wanted Chinese pheasants in Oregon partly. The few that remained were released along the lower Columbia River. Only a small number survived the trip to Oregon, which were released on the lower Columbia River near Portland, but historians have disagreed about how successfully this first group established itself. Food and Drug Administration notes that after Denny’s introduction, ring-necked pheasants were released in practically every U.S. state.Not every American pheasant population can be traced directly to Denny’s original birds, however.
The pheasants beat themselves against the bars of their cages during the journey, according to a historical account compiled by HistoryLink. Most survived the ocean voyage, but the difficult journey from Port Townsend to Oregon killed many of them. Most of the birds survived the ocean crossing. The birds had to be transported from Port Townsend to Portland, and the unfamiliar movement of trains and boats caused them to panic. Some later accounts credited the surviving birds with reproducing, while others considered the first attempt unsuccessful. HistoryLink records that ring-necked pheasants had spread through Oregon and Washington by the late 19th century. The birds were initially known in Oregon as China pheasants or Denny pheasants. Their descendants spread beyond the original release sites, through the help of further introductions and transfers to other parts of the country. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife describes the Willamette Valley as the site of the first successful U.S. introduction and notes that the birds soon expanded into the tens of thousands. The success of the Pacific Northwest population encouraged people elsewhere in the United States to introduce pheasants for hunting. The ring-necked pheasant is native to Asia, not North America. The U.S. Later introductions involved other pheasant stocks and releases by game farms and private organizations. Still, the Oregon population became the model for establishing the species in the wild in the United States. Oregon wildlife officials describe ring-necked pheasants as farmland birds that depend heavily on cereal grains and other seeds, with taller vegetation providing cover.
