Thanks for the info, Andy and Jon
This is slightly off track. I have been reading A Country So Full of
Game by Dinsmore, an wildlife history of my home state of Iowa. It has a
wealth of information about the timelines for the loss of shrinking of
many mammal and bird populations, and included related topics such as the
economics of market hunting and the spread or failure of intoduced species.

Here is the connection: In Dinsmore's book he cites research that shows a
significant factor in failed efforts to reintroduce prairie chickens in
the midwest (Iowa and Illinois) is their inability to compete with
introduced ring-necked pheasants-in some cases the pheasants will even
drive the prairie chickens off their nest. This poses my question-
Is their any evidence for introduced game birds, such as pheasants or
chuckars, limiting or competing with native grouse? Chukars, from my
limited reading, seem to do rather well in degraded/overgrazed cheat
grass areas.

When thinking about the often unforseen effects of introuduced species, I
had never considered the role of pheasants as one of the major actors.

Jim Neitzel
The Evergreen State College
neitzelj at elwha.evergreen.edu