Fall & Winter 2012: Volume 33, Numbers 3 & 4 - Missouri Prairie ...

Max ALleger
For the rest of our annual 100-bird
quota, I began searching land west and
north of the Air National Guard Range.
Native rangeland in the Smoky Hills
doesn’t get as much rain (about 25 inches
annually) and burning is not as widespread
or as frequent—about once every
4 to 10 years. Also, cropland enrolled
in the Conservation Reserve Program
(CRP) was planted to a native mix of
grasses and forbs or to smooth bromegrass.
In average or above average rainfall
years, native plantings may be too
tall for chickens, but are a much more
appropriate height in dry years when
nearby rangeland may be grazed too
short. Thus CRP may help keep Smoky
Hills’ greater prairie-chicken populations
from declining during dry years.
While driving a Saline County road
looking and listening for booming, I met
Brent Laas, a local farmer and stockman,
who asked me if I was lost. I said, “I
know where I am, but I’m looking for
folks like you who could help me find
prairie-chicken booming grounds.” He
said he knew of a large lek by a house he
owned and I was welcome to take some
of those birds if his brother, daughter,
some other relatives, friends, and he
could watch how the heck I intended
to catch the birds. Our efforts provided
several hours of entertainment for them.
Satisfied we knew what we were
doing, Brent said he thought there was
a large lek north of I-70 in Glendale
Township where he cut prairie hay. That
was the beginning of a series of events
that literally opened the doors to other
Smoky Hills ranches. I went to Glendale
Township the next morning and found a
lek of 33 males on a wheat field, which,
ironically, was owned by St. Louis attorney
Maurice Springer. Further searching
revealed several smaller leks. I began
contacting landowners and they told me
other places to look. Two landowners
in particular, Gordon McClure and Hal
Berkley, owned a lot of land and knew
a lot of landowners. If I found a place I
wanted to look, I was to tell the owners
I was working with them. Further, if I
needed a phone number they usually
had it on their cells. One of the ranchers
Gordon suggested we talk to Dick
Dietrich who owned or leased thousands
of acres of rangeland north of Tescott.
Gordon also provided his farm headquarters
for temporary storage of traps,
wire, and equipment, and loaned me a
fence charger to put a hotwire around
leks where cattle were present.
I also contacted Sandy Walker,
manager of Rolling Hills Wildlife
Adventures west of Salina, about a lek
on her land. Sandy asked if we needed
health inspections on the birds. While
we didn’t have to, we did take Sandy
up on her offer of the services of her
resident vet, Danelle Okeson. Danelle
had done Ph.D. work on Attwater’s
prairie-chickens near Houston so was
very familiar with prairie-chicken health.
Danelle was a great trooper, even meeting
me at a Salina truck stop between
2:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. in the summer
when we were transporting hens and
chicks.
Max ALleger
Dr. Danelle Okeson, a vet from the Smoky Hills,
volunteered to conduct health inspections of the
birds to be translocated to Missouri. Dr. Okeson was
a trooper, even meeting the crew at a truck stop at
2:00 a.m. to examine trapped birds.
Greater prairie-chickens fly above the wide open
landscape of Kansas’ Smoky Hills Region of tall and
mid-grass prairie.
We provided every landowner on
whose land we worked written documentation
of exactly what we caught,
took back, and released. We entered no
land without landowners’ knowledge
and we reported anything out of the
ordinary, a calf out or down, broken
fence wire, etc., and every gate was shut
unless we found it open in which case
we checked with them to make sure it
was to be left open.
Our trapping experience resulted
in an extraordinarily good working relationship
with landowners and Danelle.
Over 60 landowners or their ranch
managers trusted us and our word, giving
us access to their land day and night.
We were turned down only a handful
of times and those by landowners who
wanted to make sure the birds remained
in good numbers where they were. Most
landowners were happy that they could
contribute to restoring a new population
elsewhere and wanted to know how
they were doing and how we planned to
make sure they didn’t die out again. The
latter may be our biggest challenge.
Steve Clubine served as the grassland
biologist for the Missouri Department of
Conservation until retiring in 2010. His
“Native Warm-Season Grass News”
(see page 25) is a regular feature
of the Missouri Prairie Journal.
Vol. 33 Nos. 3 & 4 Missouri Prairie Journal 17