Chukars Getting Established in ND?

July 26, 2011 | By | Reply More

Anyone seen chukars running around in North Dakota? According to a recent article in The Bismarck Tribune, these fun birds are there for the seeing…and hopefully one day hunting. Excerpts:

> The other day my friend, Jean, and I were walking our dogs near her house by Sleepy Hollow when this silly little bird about the size of a small chicken scooted across the road in front of us. I stood there for a moment rubbing my eyes…. Was that a chukar?

> I looked further down the street, only to be amazed by a whole family of chukars ambling through someone’s front yard. There was even one perched on a roof. You see, chukars aren’t supposed to be in Bismarck. They aren’t even supposed to be in North Dakota. What were they doing here?

> Eight or nine years ago, apparently a crate of birds en route to a [dog training] session fell off a truck and broke open, scattering chukars all over the place. Some of these birds survived and soon, broods of chukar chicks were found near the “spill zone.”

> Today they can been found in several locations in the Bismarck area and some of these are miles from the original site.

> Chukars were introduced into North America in 1893, and…today, chukars can be found in the dry rugged foothills and mountains of Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, and north to Oregon and Washington. In Nevada and Oregon, they are the No. 1 harvested upland game bird.

> Their favorite food is cheatgrass seeds and leaves, but they are also known to eat many other weed seeds and some berries. They also eat sunflower seeds.

Category: Chukar, ND

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