Sharing Prairie Chickens

  • A male prairie chicken showing off for the hens. (Photo by Dan Gunderson)

Most of the native prairie east of the Mississippi is now farmland, but there are still a few isolated spots where remnants of prairie survive… and with them a prairie icon… the greater prairie chicken, but prairie chickens need a lot of habitat… and in places such as Illinois, Wisconsin and other states, only a few hundred birds survive. One state is having better luck, and some of its birds are being moved to help revive other prairie chicken populations. The GLRC’s Dan Gunderson reports:

Transcript

Most of the native prairie east of the Mississippi is
now farmland, but there are still a few isolated spots
where remnants of prairie survive; and with them a
prairie icon: the greater prairie chicken. But prairie
chickens need a lot of habitat, and in places such as
Illinois, Wisconsin and other states, only a few
hundred birds survive. One state is having better
luck, and some of its birds are being moved to help
revive other prairie chicken populations. The GLRC’s
Dan Gunderson reports:


The prairie chickens are ghostly shapes in the grey
predawn light of this spring morning.


(sound of prairie chickens in)


The cocks cackle as they fight off other males. They
inflate the orange sacks on their necks and make a
mournful echoing sound. Tail feathers erect they strut
about trying to impress the hens, who sit quietly
watching.


This 5,000 acre chunk of native prairie in Minnesota
has never been plowed. The prairie chickens have
always lived here. Today it’s owned by the Nature
Conservancy and known as the Bluestem Prairie.
Brian Winter manages the land. This morning he’s in a
small plywood blind counting prairie chickens on their
booming ground. About 40 males are strutting their
stuff.


“In Minnesota it’s a success story and we hope it gets
to be an even more successful success story than what it is
right now.”


Genetic diversity is one of the keys to a species
survival. In many states, prairie chickens are so
isolated the gene pool becomes weak. In Minnesota
there are flocks of prairie chickens along the western
edge of the state. Brian Winter says those flocks are
close enough to keep the gene pool from getting
stagnant.


“So there’s interbreeding as birds disperse in the fall.”


(sound of chickens tussling)


“Nice fight just took place right there. The research that’s been done looking at the genetics shows the
Minnesota population is one of the best in terms of
genetic diversity.”


Brian Winter says 20 years ago there were an
estimated 2,000 prairie chickens in Minnesota.
Today the population is approaching 10,000. The
prairie chicken is stable enough in Minnesota that
there’s been a limited hunting season the past two
years. In the past few years, several hundred
Minnesota chickens have helped rebuild populations
in North Dakota, Illinois and Wisconsin. Later this
summer, Minnesota prairie chickens will be captured
and moved by the Wisconsin Prairie Chicken Society,
in an effort to save a population declining in size and
genetic diversity.


Dave Sample with the Wisconsin DNR says the state
hopes to set aside 15,000 acres of grassland for
prairie chicken habitat in the next ten years. But he
says the birds won’t survive without a genetic infusion.


“In order to increase genetics in a compromised
population you do need to bring an infusion in from
outside. You pretty much have to go where genetics
are good and bring those birds in to mix with ours.”


Sample says there’s no guarantee the Wisconsin
prairie chicken population will survive, but he thinks
expanding the genetic pool will be a big step in the
right direction.


Earl Johnson is Regional Wildlife Manager for the
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He
says the prairie chicken success reflects a
conservation success. Johnson says the federal
Conservation Reserve Program has turned thousands
of acres of marginal farmland back into grassland.
That makes good prairie chicken habitat. Johnson
says Minnesota is very fortunate to have a healthy
prairie chicken population.


“What’s the long term future for the prairie chicken? I’d hate to guess, but we are happy to help any states
that want our assistance by transplanting birds.”


Johnson calls the prairie chicken the prairie poster
child. Hundreds of people come from across the
country every spring to sit in blinds and watch the
mating dance. Johnson says interest is growing every
year. At the Bluestem Prairie, the Nature
Conservancy blinds are full almost every day during
the spring. Brian Winter says people from every state
have traveled here to see the spring spectacle unique
to the prairie grassland.


Despite its success, the prairie chicken population is
only as stable as its habitat. Winter says the prairie
chicken may be the most visible prairie resident, but
what’s good for the prairie chicken is good for many
other species as well.


“It’s going to be meadowlarks and bobolinks and
mallard ducks and a whole variety of grassland birds
that just require grassland habitat to survive, and
without it they’re just not going to be there.”


And that’s going to require larger grassland areas.
Too much of the prairie has disappeared in many
states to support healthy numbers of prairie chickens.
That means if the prairie chicken is to survive more of
the marginal farmland, the poorer quality farmland,
needs to be returned to prairie.


For the GLRC, I’m Dan Gunderson.


(sound of mating prairie chickens)

Related Links

Home Renovation Turns Up Surprise for Science

  • Egg collectors kept precise records about where and when their prize possessions were gathered. They carefully removed the contents of the egg, then nested the shells in cedar sawdust to protect them from insects. (Photo courtesy of Carrol Henderson)

More and more people say their favorite hobby is bird-watching. Many travel to hot bird-watching spots, and keep lists of which birds they see and where. A hundred years ago, birders were just as enthusiastic, but they practiced the hobby very differently. They collected bird eggs. A Midwestern farm family recently discovered an ancestor’s egg collection when they were remodeling an old farmhouse. Experts say the collection has a lot to offer to scientists studying birds today. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

More and more people say their favorite hobby is
bird-watching. Many travel to hot bird-watching spots, and keep
lists of which birds they see and where. A hundred years ago,
birders were just as enthusiastic, but they practiced the hobby
very differently. They collected bird eggs.


A Midwestern farm family recently discovered an ancestor’s egg collection when they were
remodeling an old farmhouse. Experts say the collection has a
lot to offer to scientists studying birds today. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


Carrol Henderson considers himself a very lucky man. He’s the director of the non-game wildlife program at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He grew up on a farm in central Iowa.


Last summer, he learned that a family in his old neighborhood was renovating a farmhouse. It had belonged to Ralph Handsaker. When Handsaker died thirty years ago, the house was boarded up and left alone.


“… And when the family started renovating this old farmhouse for the great-great-grandson, John Handsaker, along with a number of old animal mounts and interesting things, there were these two large chests with about fifteen drawers each, that were totally filled with little sets of wild bird eggs.”


The smallest egg, from a hummingbird, was small enough to sit on top of a dime. The biggest was an ostrich egg almost six inches long. Some were creamy white, others were speckled, others streaked with color like a Jackson Pollack painting.


There were more than 3,600 eggs, representing more than 400 species of birds from all over the world. And they were in perfect condition.


“Each set of eggs was very neatly labeled with information about the day they were collected, who the collector was, and information about the habitat where the egg was collected. Some of these eggs went all the way back to 1875, and they were collected by over three hundred different people from all over the world.”


This is how nature-lovers expressed their passion in those days. They called themselves oologists. They kept their eggs in drawers lined with cedar sawdust to protect them from insects. They also kept meticulous records.


“So the scientific data was very high quality among these avid collectors. So even today, these provide very important nest records for birds that are now gone. Like in my home county of Story County, Iowa, there were Marble Godwits, King Rails, Prairie Chickens, and Bobwhite Quail, and those are all gone now.”


The birds disappeared as people turned prairies into farms. But Carrol Henderson says the records in the bird collection provide detailed information about where and when they nested.


“And another intriguing thing is that when these people blew out the eggs, there was still a lining of the egg white or albumen left inside the egg. And that still has the original DNA genetic material, so it actually would be possible for scientists to do DNA analysis of these eggs to take a look at how they may compare with birds nowadays.”


Henderson says these collectors didn’t think they were harming the birds. That’s because if their eggs disappear, most birds will lay another set. But competition for the eggs of rare birds was disastrous.


“One person in Philadelphia had a collection of over seven hundred Peregrine Falcon eggs. Another Peregrine egg collector went to the same cliff and collected all the eggs from the Peregrines every year for 29 consecutive years. And then finally the nest was abandoned. And he said it was abandoned due to encroaching civilization. That was where egg collecting really had something of a dark side.”


Eventually, attitudes began to change. In 1918, the federal government passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, to protect birds and eggs. But the government let three collectors keep on collecting. One of them was Ralph Handsaker. So his collection goes into the early 1950’s.


Carrol Henderson says there’s a lot to learn from these eggs. One of the best lessons is about human responsibility. Henderson says people these days enjoy nature differently than they did a hundred years ago. But we can still learn something from earlier methods.


“It’s like a little time machine: stepping back in time, seeing what was here, and then looking at what’s changed, and what does that mean for our own conservation efforts, how can we do a better job today to collect information and use that for our own conservation of wildlife species?”


Carrol Henderson’s article about the Handsaker egg collection will appear in the October issue of Birders World magazine. The Handsaker family is planning to donate the collection to a major university.


For the GLRC, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.