A Story of Loss and Hope

Attwater’s prairie-chickens once had some 6 million acres of homeland. The prairies they knew extended along the Gulf Coast from Corpus Christi, Texas, north to the Bayou Teche area in Louisiana and inland some 75 miles. Grasses of many species waved in the winds including little bluestem, Indiangrass, and switchgrass.

The Downward Slide

Acre by acre, coastal prairies diminished as cities and towns sprouted up, industries grew and expanded, and farmers plowed up native grasslands for croplands or tame pasture. Suppressing prairie fires also allowed brush species to invade prairies.
Like fish out of water, the Attwater’s prairie-chicken had nowhere to go. By 1919, it disappeared from Louisiana. By 1937, only about 8,700 individuals remained in Texas, signaling the end of hunting for a once common game bird. The bird was listed as endangered in 1967, and in 1973 the Endangered Species Act provided immediate protection for this seriously declining bird.

Today, less than one percent of the original prairie once occupied by Attwater’s prairie-chickens remains. Habitat fragmentation has left some remaining prairie habitat patches too small to be useful to the birds. This has created favorable conditions for many prairie-chicken predators. In recent years, the decline begun by habitat loss has been compounded by other factors. Periods of harsh weather in the early 1990s resulted in the loss of Attwater's prairie-chicken eggs and chicks over several years.

Hope in the Form of a Refuge

When the World Wildlife Fund purchased about 3,500 acres in the mid-1960s, at last, the Attwater’s prairie-chicken had at least one place to call home. The land was transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1972 and today’s refuge is more than three times its original size.

Steps Toward Recovery

The Attwater’s Prairie-Chicken Recovery Plan outlines tasks to save this species from extinction, and ultimately, to remove it from the endangered species list. To reach a goal of 5,000 birds in three geographically separate, viable populations, recovery efforts focus on five strategies:

1. Habitat management on both public and private lands (involving voluntary cooperators only);
2. Public outreach to help generate support for ongoing recovery efforts;
3. Population management consisting of captive breeding and reintroduction efforts;
4. Coordination between government agencies and private interests;
5. Research to provide information necessary for taking efficient steps toward recovery.

Captive Breeding

So few birds are left that a captive breeding program offers the best hope for saving this species. The first chicks were hatched at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center near Glen Rose, Texas, in 1992. Now, Texas A&M University, the Houston Zoo, the San Antonio Zoo, Sea World of Texas, Caldwell Zoo, and the Abilene Zoo all take part in raising birds destined to return to the wild.

Once chicks become capable of independent survival, they leave the breeding facility for release sites. Here, biologists fit each bird with a radio transmitter, and a veterinarian checks them over to make sure they are healthy. For the next two weeks, the birds live in acclimation pens. They adjust to the prairie their ancestors knew intimately.

Attwater's Prairie-Chicken
Meet the Attwater's Prairie-Chicken