The tail is short and rounded at the tip. The greater prairie chicken or pinnated grouse (Tympanuchus cupido), sometimes called a boomer, is a large bird in the grouse family.This North American species was once abundant, but has become extremely rare and extirpated over much of its range due to hunting and habitat loss. Conservation measures are underway to ensure the sustainability of existing small populations. Sharp-tailed grouse (Sharptails) and greater prairie-chickens, collectively referred to as prairie grouse, are closely related native birds that are primarily distributed across prairie-dominated landscapes of central and western South Dakota. The Greater Prairie-Chicken and Lesser Prairie-Chicken are famous for their unique mating dances performed on special display grounds, called leks, each spring. These two refuges combine for about 12,000 acres - 0.2% of the historic 6 million acres of prairie. Range of the Greater Prairie-Chicken in 1800. Greater Prairie-Chicken populations declined to … Their genus name, Tympanuchus, comes from the Ancient Greek; its meaning, "holding a drum,” refers to this bird's booming calls, which are amplified by inflatable neck sacs. In spring, males gather at display site and dance to attract females: look for them hunched over with earlike feathers protruding from the head and yellowish-orange skin exposed on the neck. The Attwater's Prairie-Chicken is a member of the North American grouse family. There are tufts of long feathers on the sides of the neck; these tufts are longer in males. Sharp-tailed grouse use some of the same habitats, but their needs are distinct from prairie-chickens. Prairie-chickens rank as a high conservation priority throughout their range particularly because Open in Map Open in Map Description: GPChickenOverallRange is an ESRI SDE Feature Class showing Colorado greater prairie chicken distribution. Greater prairie chicken populations are found in Grand Forks County and in the Sheyenne National Grasslands in eastern North Dakota. Feb 4, 2011 (Last modified Oct 5, 2011) Uploaded by Conservation Biology Institute. Current Range . It is known that prairie chickens made a huge expansion of their range as settlers moved onto the prairies and the great herds of buffalo disappeared. Separate from Lesser Prairie-Chicken by range; averages slightly darker and larger than Lesser. In flight, prairie-chickens have a rounded tail, and sharp-tailed grouse have tail feathers that come to a sharp point. Inconspicuous and difficult to find away from display sites. Slightly smaller and darker than it's close relative the Greater Prairie-Chicken, this southern subspecies of the now extinct Heath Hen once roamed an extensive range on the coast of Texas and Louisiana. Wisconsin's greater prairie chicken (Tympanuchus cupido pinnatus) began its return from near extinction in this state when, in 1954, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) entered into a partnership with Wisconsin conservation groups to establish a prairie chicken management program on the Buena Vista Grasslands in southwestern Portage County. Adapted from various sources – see text. prairie grouse, most of them involving prairie chickens in fragmented habitat or small blocks of prairie ( Hamerstrom and Hamerstrom 1949, Burger 1988, Toepfer 1988, Schroeder and Braun 1992a). Adult greater prairie-chickens are barred with brown, tan, and rust colors throughout and are similar in size to a small domestic chicken. The mating dance of the male greater prairie-chickens is a special attraction (Figure 1). Sharp-tailed Grouse and Greater Prairie-chicken. Our objective was to estimate home range size for Greater Prairie-Chickens on a large block of unfragmented tallgrass prairie. Greater Prairie Chicken Overall Range. We further Orange air sacs and eyebrows are conspicuous on males in the spring. From six million acres ranging from the Nueces River in Texas to Bayou Teche in Louisiana, this bird has seen its range crushed to two small pockets of habitat in Galveston and Colorado counties. Prairie-chickens were extirpated from Iowa in the 1950’s, but have been successfully introduced in a few areas in southern Iowa (Dinsmore 1994, Moe 2002). prairie-chickens.