Partnerships Make Chicken Project Fly

Aug 26, 07:19 AM

Current Headlines: By Brad Dokken, Grand Forks Herald, N.D.

Aug. 26--The effort now under way to trap and transport prairie chickens from northwestern Minnesota to central Wisconsin is a cooperative effort involving numerous partners.

The goal is to replenish a gene pool that's become a bit too shallow.

According to Scott Hull, upland wildlife ecologist and farm bill coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the state's remnant prairie chicken population has three to four "subpopulations."

Those subpopulations, Hull says, are becoming geographically isolated by increased urban development.

As a result, chickens that used to intermix now are confined to their respective subpopulations. In 2004, Hull says, a panel of experts reviewing the remnant population had one main recommendation:

Begin translocation immediately.

That's where the 25 chickens from northwestern Minnesota -- where populations are doing well -- come into play. The goal, Hull says, is to increase Wisconsin chicken numbers to the point where the subpopulations again connect and become more genetically diverse.

Key players in the project include:

-- Northwest Research and Outreach Center and Natural Resources Department, University of Minnesota-Crookston.

-- UND.

-- Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

-- University of Wisconsin-Madison.

-- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (specifically Agassiz, Rydell and Glacial Ridge national wildlife refuges, and Jake Stich, a UMC wildlife management graduate with nightlighting experience who now works for the service in Fergus Falls, Minn.).

-- Natural Resources Conservation Service -- Glacial Ridge office in Crookston.

-- The Nature Conservancy, Glacial Ridge Project.

-- Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in Jamestown, N.D.

-- Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

-- Wes and Bryan Rydell of Rydell GM Auto Center in Grand Forks, who donated a field research vehicle.

-- Don Wolfe of Sutton Avian Research Center, University of Oklahoma, Bartlesville.

Reach Dokken at 780-1148, (800) 477-6572 ext. 148, or bdokken@gfherald.com.

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