Greater Prairie Chickens. Photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren
For this Valentine's Day, let's send some love and help to an iconic species, whose rituals de l'amour have delighted Wisconsin birders for decades.
I write, of course, of the Prairie Chicken. For decades a bit later in the spring, Wisconsin birders and lots of other folks have traveled to the grasslands of central Wisconsin, awakened before dawn, trudged to cold, dark blinds to delight in the prairie chickens' breeding rituals. The males dance their hearts out (once in a while a cliche is appropriate) on leks, their ancestral breeding grounds, to attract the hen of their dreams.
Everyone privileged to witness this spectacle is awe-struck and grateful.
Greater Prairie Chickens on Booming Grounds in Central Wisconsin. Video by Davy Russell
Once common throughout the prairies of southern Wisconsin, the Prairie Chicken is clinging to existence in those central Wisconsin grasslands. They have been the subject of intense study and conservation for decades. Frances and Frederick Hamerstorm were among Leopold's most famous students and the Wisconsin's Prairie Chickens' great scholars and champions. Many answered their call to conserve the bird. The Dane County Conservation League was one of several conservation organizations who purchased and still own 4,300 acres of habitat for the birds.
The birds hung on but time is no longer the birds' ally. Populations are stagnant or declining. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has recognized that the Prairie Chickens need more help if they are to survive and thrive.
The WDNR is calling on the public to review 4 options for future management of our Prairie Chickens and to communicate your preference. Visit the WDNR’s website here to view those four options and read more about several conservation organizations' recommended option, Number 1. Check out The Prairie Enthusiasts’ comments here. Madison Audubon strongly recommends #1 too.
Read about each of the four management options in the full draft plan.
Then provide your input by email to Alaina Gerrits (Alaina.Gerrits@wisconsin.gov). Include subject line: GRPC Input. Be sure to include which management option you prefer and why.
Option 1: Land + Research
Option 1 has two components: a) to acquire more land, invest in more management, and work more closely with neighboring landowners in the central Wisconsin areas where the birds persist and b) to seriously study and develop the option of establishing a second population of the birds in southwest Wisconsin. The draft plan indicates that Option 1 gives the chickens the best chance to thrive and not just hang on in Wisconsin.
Prairie Chicken Management Area at Buena Vista Wildlife Area. Photo by Joshua Mayer
The notion of establishing the bird in SW Wisconsin might surprise some or seem a bit far fetched. It's worth remembering that Prairie Chickens persisted in southern Wisconsin more recently than you might think. Dane County's last prairie chickens disappeared in the late 1950s; their death knell was the final drainage of the once vast Brooklyn Marsh. The folks in Aldo Leopold's Riley Game Cooperative occasionally encountered Prairie Chickens. Prairie Chickens were also found at Faville Grove Sanctuary into the 1950s. Also worthy of note is the fact that southern Wisconsin was the original stronghold of Wisconsin's Prairie Chickens. Their sanctuary in central Wisconsin was created by some human interventions that developed those grasslands.
Some very dedicated conservationists in several organizations are spending thousands of hours and millions of private and public dollars to restore grasslands and wetlands in the Prairie Chickens' old haunts. While these activities now benefit pollinators and our current cohort of grassland bird species, we're nearing the amount and quality of habitat that would support chickens.
Madison Audubon in fact is helping The Prairie Enthusiasts with a key addition to lands that will be part, fingers crossed, of the chickens' new home. Ten or fifteen years from now some of you reading this might be making a trip not too far west of Mt. Horeb to watch the Prairie Chickens searching for love—in this case, in all the right places.
With that thought, Happy Valentine's Day.
Topf Wells, Madison Audubon board of directors and advocacy committee chair
Cover photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren
