Iowa’s Prairie Chicken Day is canceled as population drops

For more than a decade, Iowans have gathered at the Kellerton Grasslands Bird Conservation Area at sunrise to watch the unique courtship dance of the prairie chicken, whose population in Iowa has been closely monitored for decades.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources announced last week that Prairie Chicken Day, typically held the first week in April, was canceled due to the bird’s decline in population that has resulted in only sporadic sightings at the typically popular site in Ringgold County.

The greater prairie chicken was once Iowa’s most prominent game bird, and according to the Iowa DNR might be the first game in the state to have a bag limit. Hunting of the bird officially ended in 1915 due to concerns of its declining population.

The number of prairie chickens continued to dip as agriculture and other development diminished grasslands in the state, which the prairie chicken needs to nest and brood.

According to the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, less than 0.01 percent of Iowa’s landscape that historically was prairie remains.

Stephanie Shepherd, a wildlife diversity biologist with the Iowa DNR, said the prairie chicken is “very picky“ about its habitat and needs “huge” areas of grass with very few trees to thrive.

“We see a lot about how much of the loss of habitat has already happened, and it has, but we are still also losing grassland,” Shepherd said.

In the 1950s, Iowa recorded the last nesting prairie chickens in the state and it wasn’t until the 1980s and 1990s that attempts were made to reintroduce the bird.

Shepherd said because the prairie chicken has such high standards for its prairie, it acts as an “umbrella species” for other grassland critters. She said the conservation efforts in southern Iowa by the state, The Nature Conservancy, Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation and other groups have created “one of the most wonderful grassland landscapes” and home to other prairie birds like short-eared owls, upland sandpipers and harriers.

“It’s sad that it’s not necessarily looking like it’s going to support a sustainable prairie chicken population, but it is supporting lots of other wildlife, and is still an incredible place to visit,” Shepherd said.

Shepherd said the birds are “incredibly unique” from a conservationist standpoint, but also for their courtship dance, and the associated noises.

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 communal areas called leks during the spring.

The observation deck at the Kellerton site looked out at a lek, which made it perfect for the festival. Shepherd said this year, only two males have been observed at the lek, which bodes poorly for a prairie chicken day, but not necessarily for the birds themselves.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that the population has crashed and is gone,” Shepherd said. “They do sometimes decide that they don’t like one lek and move to another one for a couple years and shift around.”

This is also why the department is expanding its search for the greater prairie chicken beyond the leks it already monitors.

“We’ve been doing surveys all along, and the numbers keep steadily going down, but the missing piece is: Are there leks that we just don’t know about?” Shepherd asked.

The department estimates there are 40 to 70 prairie chickens in Iowa, primarily in Adair, Madison, Adams, Union, Clarke, Taylor, Ringgold, Decatur and Wayne counties, though the territory also stretches into northern Missouri.

Iowans who have prairie chickens on their property, or find them in the state, are encouraged to report their findings through an online form to the department.

The department also is deploying several automated recording units that can detect the prairie chickens’ unique call, which could help identify additional leks.

“You can never say never with wildlife, it will always surprise you,” Shepherd said. “So who knows there could be, like, 17 leks out there that we have no idea about.”

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.