Lesser Prairie Chicken Making
Appearance On Government Radar

By David Bowser

CANADIAN, Texas — The lesser prairie chicken, one of two species of grouse native to the state of Texas, may become another government-sponsored headache for private landowners.

"Like its more famous relative, the Atwater prairie chicken of the coastal prairie, the conservation and management of the lesser prairie chicken may soon fall under the auspices of the Endangered Species Act," says John P. Hughes, assistant area manager of the Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area here.

In 1998, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued what is termed a "warranted but precluded ruling" listing this species as "threatened." The ruling is subject to annual review, and the next review will be this October.

The lesser prairie chicken is found in two eco-regions of the Texas Panhandle: the Rolling Plains along the eastern edge of the Panhandle on the Texas-Oklahoma line, and the High Plains west of Lubbock on the Texas-New Mexico line, Hughes says.

"In the Rolling Plains, the chicken generally occurs in the sand sage mid-grass prairies north of the Canadian River and shinnery oak mid-grass rangelands south of the Canadian River," he says. "They also occur in the Permian Basin sub-region of the High Plains in shinnery oak mid-grass rangeland."

But the range of the lesser prairie chicken has contracted sharply in the last 50 years. In 1945, sizeable populations remained in the Permian Basin and in a large area of the northeastern Texas Panhandle as well as on the Southern Rolling Plains.

Forty years later, data indicated that the Permian Basin populations had shrunk markedly and had become fragmented. The northeastern Panhandle populations had also become fragmented.

"The population on the Southern Rolling Plains has all but disappeared," Hughes says. "We hear a few scattered reports of chickens in this area, but for all practical purposes, they're gone."

There are many factors for this, he believes.

"Particularly in the southern portion of the Panhandle, intensive agriculture is probably the major culprit," Hughes contends.

The reason is the loss of habitat to row crops.

"This is most apparent with cotton agriculture," Hughes says. "Unlike many kinds of crops, cotton really offers nothing for the chicken in terms of food or cover."

Another factor may be brush encroachment. Again, this is most apparent in the southern Panhandle.

"The main species coming in is mesquite, but there are several areas that were formerly chicken range where shinnery oak has increased above threshold levels," Hughes says.

Along with brush encroachment is improper rangeland management.

"This unfortunately is widespread throughout the range of the chicken," Hughes says. "It's perhaps most damaging where nesting cover is destroyed."

The effects of oil and gas development on the lesser prairie chicken populations are not well-known.

"Chickens have been documented using abandoned drilling pads as a lek (gathering) site," Hughes says. "However, we're not certain of the effects of increased roads and human activity on prairie chicken breeding activity."

Or how that may indirectly impact the birds. Research in southwestern Kansas, for example, shows the primary predator to be the striped skunk.

And skunks, Hughes notes, "are using roads readily as travel corridors to find nests."

It was hoped that the creation of the Conservation Reserve Program in the 1985 Farm Act and its implementation in the Panhandle would curb loss of habitat for the chicken, Hughes says.

But the vast majority of the CRP land was planted to monocultures of weeping love grass and Old World bluestem rather than native species. Usually, CRP also lacks a lack of shrub component.

Although CRP has been a disappointment to wildlife biologists, there are exceptions.

"We have documented lesser prairie chickens on CRP where it's found in close proximity with native range," Hughes notes, and in one instance in Hockley County near Lubbock, the chickens have settled on CRP amid some intensively farmed cotton land.

"They seem to be drawn to the area by CRP," Hughes says, "and they've existed for at least the past three years. We hope to study this population in more detail to determine how they're using this landscape, and if this represents a source or a sink population."

Prairie chicken monitoring began in Texas in 1942 with the northeastern Panhandle population, and in 1969 for the Permian Basin population.

The basic data concerns the average number of males per lek. Although there has been a lot of variation since 1942, the population in the northeastern Panhandle increased over the more than 50 years it has been monitored.

"This has not been the case, however, in the last 10 years," he says. "It has experienced a significant decline."

The Permian Basin population has experienced a significant decline since the inception of monitoring in 1969, Hughes says. While there is a lot of variation and some missing data, Hughes says the trend is downward.

"Surprisingly enough," he adds, "this population has not declined significantly in the last 10 years."

He says this could be because that population is recovering from an all-time low in 1991 of 3.88 birds per lek or grouping.

"They're slowly but surely building back up," Hughes says. "We hope this continues."

In addition to the average males per lek data, lek density or lek per unit area data were collected in the northeastern Panhandle from 1942 until 1986 on two intensive study areas, one in Hemphill County and one in Wheeler County.

"The Wheeler County site actually increased significantly during that time," Hughes says. "The Hemphill County site remained markedly stable."

The lek per unit area figures are higher in shinnery oak as opposed to sand sage sites.

These surveys were discontinued in 1986 because of manpower shortages, but they were resumed in 1997.

"The Hemphill County site was 22 percent above the 1942-1986 average," Hughes says. "However, the Wheeler County site was 93 percent below the average. In an area where we used to find 22 booming grounds, we now find one. Something appears to have happened with this population."

The reason they chose to resume the lek per unit area surveys is because it's a better population index than the mean number of males per lek.

"Lesser prairie chickens have a tendency to form temporary satillite leks in years that the population is high," Hughes says. "Tallying these leks using the traditional methodology, you can actually depress the mean number of males per lek figure. You can show a decline when the birds are actually on the increase."

The mean number of males per lek and lek per unit area has a weak but significant correlation in sand sage sites, but breaks down in shinnery oak habitats.

"Although it means much more man-days in the field, the population surveys are best accomplished with lek per unit area methodology," Hughes says.

Probably the major research the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is involved in now is an effort with Texas A&M to map habitat changes within lesser prairie chicken range. The project is a comparison of maps from 1940 and 1990.

A couple of years ago, Hughes says, they also did some disease and parasite monitoring and found no population level effects.

"Some of the factors why we think the lesser prairie chicken are declining in this state is habitat loss, particularly cotton agriculture on the Southern Plains; improper range management; possibly oil and gas development; and changes in farming practices," Hughes says.

In the latter case, Hughes explains, "Several accounts mention that lesser prairie chickens form very large winter feeding flocks. This was particularly true where maize or milo was harvested by shock. This practice has long since been discontinued and replaced by more efficient harvesting methods. Consequently, a winter food source for the chickens has been removed."

Hughes also says drouth has played a role in regulating numbers.

"At least in part of the range of the lesser prairie chicken, we feel that competition with ring-necked pheasants may also be playing a role," Hughes says.

He notes that where chicken numbers have declined in Wheeler County, the same area has an expanding pheasant population. The state agency has also documented ring-necked pheasants driving male lesser prairie chickens off of leks.

"Ring-necked pheasants have been a very serious detriment to the restoration of the greater prairie chicken in several parts of the Midwest," Hughes points out. "It's not so much the aggressive interaction on the booming grounds. It's the nest paratism. Ring-necked pheasants readily paraticize the nests of other species."

With few exceptions, the lesser prairie chicken is declining throughout its range in West Texas. What's most distressing to Hughes is the overall shrinking and fragmentation of their occupied range.

"The Texas Panhandle is 98 percent privately owned. If the conservation of the lesser prairie chicken is to be accomplished, it will have to be done by the landowner," Hughes says.

(The question remaining is whether the government will assist — or simply insist. — Ed.)