AJ NewsLink: NRM grad student lays ground work for prairie-chicken study
In the dim light before sunrise, a loud bubbling sound fills the air over the expanse of sand and tall grasses in northern Yoakum County. It is the familiar springtime sound - booming - when male lesser prairie-chickens appear in the open and display their colorful features to attract females for mating.
It is also the sound regional wildlife biologists use to locate and count these typically secretive creatures whose small bodies and sand-colored feathers keep them hidden in their grassland habitats. The males reveal themselves twice a year only for their mating ritual on their breeding grounds, known as leks.
The males boom and strut for hours daily to mate with as many females as they can throughout the two-month breeding season before all the hens fly away to nest, said wildlife biologist Russell Martin. From his pickup or his setup blind, Martin counts the birds on roughly 8,000 acres - a habitat owned by the Nature Conservancy in Yoakum County.
Records show a decline in prairie-chicken population of about 90 percent in the Panhandle since the 1900s, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. To prevent the species from becoming endangered, Texas Parks and Wildlife and Texas Tech's Department of Natural Resources Management have teamed up to determine population estimates in the Texas Panhandle and to work with landowners to protect the birds' habitat.
The two-year project evolved from rising concerns about projected changes to the birds' native habitat and the species' higher priority level as an endangered species candidate. Jennifer Timmer, a Texas Tech master's student interested in the human impact on the environment, will use the survey data to create a model that can predict where high populations of prairie-chickens are, about how many live in Texas and the relationship between populations and urban development.
The estimated range of prairie-chicken habitat in Texas is about 3.1 million acres - about one-tenth of the Panhandle, but the entire project will only cover about 200 25-square-mile blocks in 17 counties. The Nature Conservancy's land is considered by many as an ideal home for prairie-chickens because it is a continuous piece of land with tall native grasses and few tall structures.
Timmer, who is a native of rural southern Michigan, said her randomly-selected study area blocks cover the current estimated lesser prairie-chicken range. "Using aerial detection and spatial data such as roads and power lines, I'll develop models to accurately predict where lesser prairie-chicken s should occur and determine if there's any impact from current structures on the landscape," she said.
During the March to May breeding period, aerial surveyors fly over leks in helicopters to mark sightings of birds using GPS coordinates. They then go back and conduct ground surveys.
In the late 1990's prairie-chickens were first proposed to be listed as an endangered species and were put on the candidate list, where they remained at a low priority level of eight. But about two years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raised the species to a level two priority because of caps on the amount of acreage farmers could enroll in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Program.
Reporting by Alyssa Dizon
CONTACT: Warren Ballard, Professor, Department of Natural Resources Management, Texas Tech University at (806) 742-1983 or warren.ballard@ttu.edu
0515NM11/PHOTO: Adam Behney
Information from: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, click http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2011-05-01/groups-count-prairie-chickens
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