Vermont · UplandRing-necked pheasant

VFWD's own upland-game-birds page states that small numbers of ringneck pheasant occur in the Champlain Valley, some wild and most the result of private stocking. This is corroborated by a rich, agency-documented stocking history recovered from the Atlas of Breeding Birds of Vermont (1976-81): the species was first stocked primarily in the Champlain Lowlands (5,000 birds released at a Shelburne preserve in 1894), and the state's Fish and Game Service later also stocked the lower Connecticut River valley and Bennington County before ending its own release program after a 1966-71 trial. The same Atlas's 1976-81 breeding-block survey recorded only 1 total priority block (0.6%) statewide, entirely in the North Central physiographic region, plus scattered non-priority-block sightings in the Champlain Lowlands, the Valley of Vermont (West Rutland, Bennington, Manchester), eastern Vermont (East Barre, Woodstock), the Green Mountains (Wardsboro), and near Westminster, confirming a thin, scattered, largely stocking-dependent presence rather than a self-sustaining regional population. VFWD's current framing requires a permit to raise and release pheasant, and the department itself runs no current stocking program.