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. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to: [log in to unmask]