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MARYVILLE

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News Brief

April 30, 2019 |  By: Kramer Sansone

MDC reports lower prairie chicken numbers

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

The Missouri Department of Conservation reports that counts of Missouri's endangered prairie-chickens on spring leks or mating grounds, remain dangerously low. In April, biologists checked leks in the state's two remaining geographies that have prairie chickens.One of those areas is the Nature Conservancy's Dunn Ranch in Harrison County. The Dunn Ranch prairie chicken numbers held steady this spring but other areas in the state are reporting low numbers. Media Specialists for the Missouri Department of Conservation, Bill Graham says the Midwest at one time had hundreds of thousands of prairie-chickens.

"They are a bird of the prairie or of healthy grasslands.  And the healthy grasslands also make great farming country.  We've altered the landscape so much that less than one tenth of one percent of Missouri's native prairie remains and those are in scattered remnants.  And that's the habitat this bird evolved with.  So the number one problem is lack of natural habitat for prairie chickens."

Graham adds the Missouri Department of Conservation is working to improve the prairie ecosystem.

"Make those natural grassland ecosystems functions healthy and viable right alongside agriculture, alongside grazing and crops.  They all can mix well with best practices."