Prairie chickens, a native species to parts of the Midwest and the Great Plains, were extirpated from the state through habitat destruction and hunting. The species was reintroduced in the 1980s ...

The 2022-32 Wisconsin prairie chicken management plan calls for grassland habitat improvements that would help a range of troubled bird species.

Prairie chickens don’t tolerate brushy habitat, while sharptails require brushy cover. When the two species mate, the result is a grouse that is neither a sharptail nor a prairie chicken, Roy says.

A male Attwater’s prairie chicken takes flight during mating season on private land near Goliad, Texas, Wednesday, March 22, 2023. The Attwater’s population was in the millions but through ...

The prairie chicken was listed as a threatened in the state in 1979 and is classified as a "species of greatest conservation need." In 2024 the DNR counted just 288 male prairie chickens on 37 ...

“We have fewer than 30,000 lesser prairie chickens left” in the U.S., Augustine noted. “I feel (that by) coming and sitting on a prairie chicken lek, you still have a piece of that history left.

A male prairie chicken waits for a mate at the greater prairie chicken lek on the Bluestem Prairie Scientific and Natural Area near Glyndon, Minnesota. Rob Bader / Minnesota DNR.

But a male prairie chicken is about the size of a football, and hens are just slightly smaller than that. Prairie chickens, when you have them in hand, and you're looking at them, ...

DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Department of Natural Resources announced on Tuesday that it would be canceling its annual Prairie Chicken Day this year due to declining populations. During the late ...

Male lesser prairie chickens make special booming vocalizations, inflate reddish-orange air sacs, and elaborately strut to impress females in the spring at gathering grounds known as leks. The ...

Male prairie chickens have orange air sacs on the sides of their necks that they will inflate and “boom” during mating. The birds begin their courtship dance and booming at dawn in the ...