When it came time to pick the design for South Dakota’s state quarter in 2005, it was a given that Mount Rushmore would be included. The only question was whether Mount Rushmore should appear alone, or whether it should appear with a buffalo or a pheasant.
Buffalo have roamed South Dakota since prehistoric times. They are a symbol of the state’s past and the nation’s western expansion. Pheasants – of the Chinese ring-necked variety – are not native to the state and were introduced barely less than a century earlier.

Despite the state’s long and storied connection to the buffalo, South Dakotans chose the pheasant. The choice said an awful lot about the degree to which those beautiful, multi-colored birds have become ingrained in the state’s culture and economy since the first pair was released into the wild near Redfield in 1908.

A booming business
The modern numbers generated by the state’s pheasant hunting industry are staggering. In 2007, when there were an estimated 11.9 million pheasants in South Dakota, 180,828 hunters harvested 2.12 million pheasants and spent an estimated $219 million in the process.

Whole communities have come to depend on pheasant hunting as one of the most important parts of their local economy, often next to agriculture. Many farmers and ranchers manage their land with an eye toward pheasant-habitat production, and federal conservation programs have aided the boom in pheasant numbers.

Tour any South Dakota community in October, and you might be nearly blinded by all the blaze orange – the color that pheasant hunters wear to be safely identified by other hunters in the field. The traditional opening day on the third Saturday in October has become an unofficial holiday, marked by the gathering of families and an influx of out-of-state hunters.