In 1881, Judge Owen Denny shipped 60 Chinese pheasants to America because he liked their meat; the survivors helped establish a wild population in Oregon

Judge Owen Nickerson Denny wanted Chinese pheasants in Oregon partly because he liked eating them. 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. Most survived the ocean voyage, but the difficult journey from Port Townsend to Oregon killed many of them. The few that remained were released along the lower Columbia River. 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 .

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