Greater Prairie Chickens
Created | Updated Sep 2, 2002
As their name suggests, Greater Prairie Chickens live on the prairie; they are a grouse, Tympanuchus cupido. You can see and hear
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them on the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve in Osage County, Oklahoma, USA. At least, you can as of 2002, just, for they are a species in severe decline, 87-percent in the 20 years since 1982.
To Live
Prairie-chickens need space in which to prosper. Scientists at the Sutton Avian Research Center say that individual prairie chickens need, on average, 1,600 acres (650 hectares) of home range with leks
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spaced between one and two miles apart. In addition, the birds need access to both burned and unburned prairie to keep themselves healthy. Growth of lush new vegetation in burned areas attracts insects in abundance, a primary source of chicken feed. Hens will lead their broods from the cover of blackberry bushes, golden rod, or ragweed
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to feed in the transition zone between burned and unburned land.
Location of nests must be just right, not too far away and not too close to the burned area. Too far puts the chicks at higher risk of dying on the journey to feeding areas: too close and they succumb to predators who have learned to find good hunting in the transition zone.
Land Management
Management of the land is important to survival of the chickens. Every spring when cattlemen raze the land with fire to stimulate new growth on which to fatten cattle, the prairie chickens are under pressure from severe degredation of their living conditions. Now on the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve patches of prairie are burned at different times of the year at random, according to the dictates of a computer programme. Scientists speculate that the land management techniques employed at the Preserve promotes the 'highest density of Greater-Prairie-Chickens found in Oklahoma today.'
Acknowledgment
Facts and figures for this summary of the Greater Prairie Chicken's woe are drawn from Don Wolfe's article Living on the Edge -- Prairie Chickens at Risk! that appeared in the Summer 2002 edition of Oklahoma Conservator, a glossy newsletter distributed to the members of the Oklahoma Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Don Wolfe is a biologist who works with Sutton Avian Research Center. Any errors in presentation of these facts is the responsibility of your humble servant, Fu-Manchu.
Boom of the Greater Prairie Chickens sounds like someone blowing across the top of an empty beer bottle.
2Lek: An abbreviation of the Swedish lekställe in this case meaning an assembly area where the prairie chickens carry on display and courtship behaviour.
3Ragweed: Of all the forbs
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, ragweed seems to be most important to prairie chickens that eat the leaves and seeds, catching insects that abound in patches of the plant.
4Forb: A plant other than grass.
