Final Report: Surveys and Investigations Projects as Required by Federal Aid inWildlife Restoration Act, Missouri. Study No. 27. Greater Prairie-Chicken Ecology on Prairies and Warm-Season Grass Plantings in Missouri. Job No. 2. Greater Prairie-Chicken Re

摘要

In recent years, grassland habitat has improved greatly in the historic prairie-chicken range within Sullivan County (Schwartz 1945). Many cultivated fields have been returned to pastures and hay lands in addition to many acres being placed in multi-year set aside through the Conservation Reserve Program. This habitat improvement, the availability of 11 gram necklace transmitters (McKee 1995) to aid with evaluation and recent successes by Iowa (M. Moe, Iowa Dept. Nat. Res., pers. commun.) with reintroductions provided support to attempt reintroductions once again in Missouri. Prairie-chickens were trapped on booming grounds in April of 1993 and 1994 east of Manhattan, Kansas. Trapping was done with walk-in funnel traps (Toepfer and Newell 1987) and a modification of this system using traps with remote releases. One hundred prairie-chickens in 1993 (29 males and 21 females with transmitters) and one hundred in 1994 (22 males and 31 females with transmitters) were released on four different sites in Sullivan County. In the spring of 1995, four booming grounds were located with 10, 12, 16 and 20 males displaying on them regularly. From the location of nests and activity centers away from these grounds, other small booming grounds are expected to exist.