Published April 17, 2006
Restoration projects enable prairie chickens' return to Iowa
PERRY BEEMAN
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Lamoni, Ia. - Several dozen male prairie chickens bobbed, hopped and flapped
in competitive tussles, while "booming" their mating calls as the
early-morning sun skimmed across their bright orange markings.
Early April is the peak of their six-month mating ritual, and the males are
putting on quite a show at Missouri's Dunn Ranch south of here. It's a
bird's-world version of when human boxers nervously stare each other down
before a fight, shadowboxing and jogging in place. They fill their orange
air sacs, making a "booming" sound - something of a guttural "ooo" that
sounds as if it's been sent down a pipe.
In Iowa and Missouri, the spectacle is found on a large scale only in two
places with large restored prairies: near Kellerton in Iowa, and near
fireworks-famous Eagleville, Mo. Combined, the two locations have fewer than
200 prairie chickens, along with untold numbers of songbirds, hawks and
owls.
The land is in the 70,000-acre Grand River Grasslands, an area targeted for
prairie restoration. Some of the land never has been plowed.
The Grand River prairie restoration is credited with returning a population
of prairie chickens to Iowa after the species disappeared from the state in
the 1950s.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported that 933,000 Iowans watched
wildlife in 2001. Residents and visitors spent $823 million on trips that
included watching wildlife that year. Nationally, spending related to
viewing wildlife is up by nearly 50 percent since 1991.
The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit group, is working with states and
organizations such as Pheasants Forever to protect as much of the important
bird habitat and restored prairie as possible, buying a little and helping
farmers get paid to protect more. So far, a combined 8,500 acres has been
restored in the Grand River Grasslands. In Iowa, that includes the
1,700-acre Kellerton Bird Conservation Area and the 2,000-acre Ringgold
Wildlife Area, both near Lamoni.
The growing prairies, within 10 miles of each other, include Dunn Ranch and
Pawnee Prairie in Missouri.
Iowa once was covered in tallgrass prairie and oak savannah, but 99 percent
of that gave way to farming.
Prairie chickens were Iowa's top game bird until they disappeared from the
state because of overhunting and habitat loss.
"They were superabundant, and then the grasses were gone and there were too
many trees," said David DeGeus, conservation programs director of the Nature
Conservancy.
The state released 100 prairie chickens in western Iowa's Loess Hills in the
early 1980s, but they failed to thrive. In the late 1980s, the state
released 247 chickens at the Ringgold area. The colorful birds began
reproducing and now are established there and at the nearby Kellerton Bird
Conservation Area.
The Nature Conservancy has helped add hundreds of acres of prairie in recent
months. Most of the land will stay in the possession of farmers, who can get
paid for agreeing to restore prairie on some of the land.
"We have to meet the ranchers' needs, too," said Keith Kinne, who manages
the Missouri sites for the Nature Conservancy.
One tactic: Burn ridge tops that are harder to plow. That lets the prairie
return on part of the landscape, while ranchers can raise cattle on the rest
of the land. Southern Iowa's rolling hills have far less corn than the
northern parts of the state.
Few Iowans get to see the spectacle of the greater prairie chickens' mating
ritual, an act common across the state decades ago.
"There are species like Henslow's sparrow, northern harriers and short-eared
owls that need big areas," said Pat Schlarbaum, a nongame biologist with the
Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Migratory songbirds such as the
dickcissel and bobolink also like the large grasslands.
On the Missouri side of the Grand River Grasslands on April 7, the Nature
Conservancy's DeGeus, Elizabeth Niven and Leslee Spraggins ushered visitors
into a blind as the first hint of sunlight hit the prairie grass. Soon, the
visitors could see the male chickens puffing up their air sacs. They do this
on the "booming grounds," also known as a lek.
The males "boom" to impress nearby females. Apparently, they are afraid
their potential mates won't get the hint, because the guys make this sound
all day. When they aren't booming, they are busy facing off with other males
for turf, even though their positions of power in the lek have already
basically been decided by their previous posturing. The males hop and wave
their wings, occasionally flying in short bursts. They run young males off
the lek.
In many cases, just as in the human world, the guys are dreaming. Only one
or two of the male chickens - the ones who have claimed the middle turf on
the lek - will actually mate with the few females in the area. The females
know which birds are in power, and they don't waste time with the also-rans.
"The sad thing is that only one or two males will mate," said DeGeus. "The
middle one is the top dog."
The lek is an area along a ridge - because the slow-moving chickens defend
themselves largely by seeing the chicken-eating hawks coming and hiding in
tall grass. They'll leave an area if they see a red-tailed hawk. Coyotes,
bobcats, raccoons, foxes and owls will eat the chickens, too.
Fortunately, the chickens are reproducing and aren't in danger of
disappearing from Iowa again.
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