PHEASANTS: Family Phasianidae [ 12.7 ] 



Counties, the little town of Hermiston being headquarters for many 

 hunting parties during the open season. They are most abundant in the 

 Snake and Malheur River Valleys of Malheur County, where they are 

 exceedingly numerous. On December 6 to 7, 1933, after an open season 

 when they had been hunted hard, the writers saw several hundred birds 

 in a few hours in the fields along the edge of the irrigated area. They 

 are present, though seemingly not doing so well, in the high plateau 

 country of Harney, Lake, and Klamath Counties. In western Oregon, 

 they do not increase as rapidly in the southern counties or on the coast 

 as they do in the Willamette Valley. Eggs are laid in April and May, 

 although later sets are sometimes found in the latter part of June 

 probably second sets following an earlier nesting disaster. 



The introduction of the China Pheasant has been a success for the 

 sportsman, but many damages to crops are charged to the bird. Many 

 farmers bitterly resent its presence, complaining that much ripening grain 

 is eaten and ridden down. The chief damage is in trucking sections, where 

 the pheasants are accused of destroying ripening melons by picking them 

 open, of pulling newly set plants of lettuce, spinach, and cabbage, of 

 pulling sprouting corn, peas, and beans, and of digging up newly planted 

 seeds of these and other vegetables. We have investigated some of these 

 complaints and found many of them to be based on facts. On the other 

 hand, pheasants are great consumers of insects and on many farms may 

 easily earn their keep by their destruction of grasshoppers and other 

 injurious insects. We believe that in general-farming districts these birds 

 do little real harm but that in truck- and vegetable-producing sections 

 they are often nuisances and many times become pests of considerable 

 importance to individual farmers. 



The Oregon Game Commission is now engaged in raising and liberating 

 many thousands of these birds each year. In January 192.4, a shipment 

 of Mongolian Pheasants (P. c. mongolicus) was imported direct from 

 China and added to the breeding stock. Possibly other shipments came 

 at other times and may help account for the somewhat mongrel crop of 

 pheasants now found in Oregon. 



