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 ...

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.

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 ...

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.

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 ...

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 ...

Conservation groups say the massive solar project impact prairie chicken habitat, so they're asking state regulators to scale it down. ... Wildlife managers counted only 248 male birds during the ...

But after a few decades, in 1904 American zoologist William Temple Hornaday wrote, “To-day the Prairie Chicken is to be numbered with the buffalo and the passenger pigeon. It is useless to ...