Not long back from a holiday in Jersey and was surprised to see so many pheasants there as a few years ago there were none. Turns out that a group of guys took 500 eggs over, hatched and reared them then intended to shoot them for sport. The powers that be in Jersey decided they did not want to have pheasant shoots and stopped the group in their tracks. Instead of taking the pheasants away with them again they released them into the wild. They are now destroying crops and are becoming a pest. They are about the only bird NOT protected in Jersey and you can understand why. What were those twits thinking about ? Imagine releasing so many birds without any forethought. Jersey's wildlife rangers and farmers are up in arms about this introduced species can you blame them?
I was in Guernsey this spring and saw some non ring necked Pheasants (colchicus) which was a first for me. Thankfully they did not have the pheasant problem at all.