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Africa & Kashmir. Importation of foreign game has also played a big part in the burgeoning wildlife. In the Smoky Mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee, hunters can flush a European red stag or a spotted axis deer, whose native habitat is India. The descendants of 14 wild boars from Prussia, which escaped from a private preserve in 1920, roam by the thousands in the forests of North Carolina. New Mexico is not only home to the cottontail rabbit; it is the adopted residence of kudu from Africa and oryx from the Arabian desert.
The ring-necked pheasant was originally brought to the U.S. from China in 1881; it now is a permanent resident of 34 states, and its numbers are estimated at upwards of 80 million. Hungarian and chukar partridges from Europe and India thrive so well that stocking experiments are being conducted with the black francolin from Pakistan, the red jungle fowl from Kashmir, and the Himalayan snow cock.
With all that game, the only thing that stands between a hunter and the pot is his shooting. This year, according to the National Safety Council, at least 600 U.S. hunters will kill the wrong animals—themselves or other hunters.