So as some of my classmates and friends may know prairie chickens are one of my absolute most favorite species of birds. Like the title says they are not actually chickens but are a species of grouse. Prairie chickens are very cool birds that I have been unfortunate enough to not see. One opportunity that I got to see prairie chickens in Iowa I had to miss because I had to go to Minneapolis. I am lucky enough that I am still helping with research at a site that has prairie chickens and I hope I will be able to see them one day.
Prairie chickens are fascinating creatures. They have a uniformly barred plumage of brown and grey with bright orange sacs on their neck. They are a medium sized bird. They have squared tails and long plumes that look like horns on their head. Males will compete for females on leks which are sites where the birds will congregate and the males will display and the females will watch. Females will lay ground nests of 7 to 17 eggs in tall, dense grass. Their are two species of prairie chickens, the greater and the lesser. There are two extant subspecies of greater prairie chicken, Attwater prairie hen and the greater prairie chicken, and one extinct species, the heath hen. Lesser prairie chickens are found through Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico in decent sized wild populations. Attwater prairie chicken is found only in southeastern Texas and formerly southwestern Louisiana. The greater prairie chicken is found with moderate numbers in Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Small pockets of prairie chickens exist is Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Iowa where they have been reintroduced or have been managed to remain in select areas both origins undergo heavy conservation. Both species of grouse were once found throughout the short and tall grass prairies of the interior of the continent but have faced many challenges as settlers moved west. They used to be found in prairie that was interspersed with oak forests. Since most of this forest was cleared they have adapted to small prairie areas with crops. Now they also seem to be harmed by the presence of dense forests.
One of the most damaging situations to prairie chickens is habitat loss and fragmentation. For the lesser prairie chicken this has meant a decrease of nearly 80% of their range since the 1800's which resulted in a decrease of 99% of the population. Attwater prairie hens have lost 97% of their home territory and had an estimated number of only 60 birds in 2003. There are an estimated 400,000 greater prairie chickens and 32,000 lesser prairie chickens. The main reason for the habitat loss is the conversion off land to agriculture. This agriculture can take the form of turning areas to cropland or over-grazing cattle. They have also had habitat damaged due to encroachment of woody plants, wind energy development, oil production, and the building of roads and fences. There has also been a lot drought in the south eastern United States that has hurt them. Many land managers used to not include prescribed burns in their management plans and they are vital for healthy prairies. All of the remaining habitat is generally fragmented and this leads to more problems; the birds may not be able to reach other populations which will increase interbreeding and lower fitness, fertility, and survival. Prairie chickens may also face competition from ring-necked pheasants (which are not a native species but are from Asia) due to similar food sources and nest parasitism.
Another challenge that the protection of prairie chickens faces is a legal one. In 2014 the Fish and Wildlife Service listed the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species and grant it protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. This was not to the liking of many states because they believed it would hamper economic development in agriculture, petroleum production, and wind energy. Kansas tried to pass a law that would make the actions of federal wildlife agents illegal and I had read that New Mexico was very unhappy. At the national level a senator has been trying to put in the defense bill an amendment that would prevent the FWS from listing the bird for five years. It is believed that listing the bird will prevent expansion of military bases and harm national security. Another senator was noted in showing that the range of the grouse hardly overlapped with any bases and that this was about stopping anything from getting in the way of corporate oil profits. The listing of the lesser prairie chicken was overturned by a judge who said that the FWS did not properly follow its own rules in the listing process. This harms the FWS's ability to list species it feels need protection, a power that it was granted. Who is to say that other legislators will not try to remove other animals from the list in the name of commerce.
There has been a lot of effort put into protecting prairie chickens. The NRCS has an initiative that works with landowners to provide incentives to set land aside for prairie habitat. This initiative also lists what can be done on land near prairie chickens to help them The states have also been creating plans that will work in a similar fashion to the NRCS's plans. There have been energy companies that have enrolled over 169,000 acres into an FWS rangewide conservation program and pledged at least $46 million dollars and millions of acres to conservation efforts to avoid the listing. There has been an increase in the population in recent years, but it must continued to be monitored to see if this trend continues. For greater prairie chickens the future is stable, but attempts to reintroduce the birds to former parts of their range have not been the most successful. These birds take many acres to be established and several years before they will mate in new locations. In areas such as the Loess Hills of Iowa the birds will typically die or disperse before they breed and establish a population. This leads to more birds being moved into the area and the cycle repeats.
There needs to be a time when man needs to realize that there are other animals on this planet and greed needs to take a back-seat. I know that people make a living off of these industries and that they are important to the whole country. I enjoy using petroleum and electricity as much as any other person but we need to look to the future. There has been synthetic diesel made and plenty of other advances in energy. Prairie chickens are really cool and we need to make sure that they have a future in the United States. Go visit prairie chickens near you and find out what you can do to help conserve the species.
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