Projects and Research

Tracking Prairie-Chickens  

Bringing back an endangered species requires continual research and constant data collection. A big part of this is population monitoring, and for the Attwater’s Prairie-Chicken, we monitor this through radio telemetry. Our biologists try to radio-collar every hen received from a captive-breeding facility so that our biology interns can track the birds throughout the year. This helps the biologists monitor the prairie-chicken’s movements, find nests in the spring, and know when a prairie-chicken has died. It is especially important to radio-collar hens so that, when she successfully rears a brood, our biologists can find and radio-collar her wild-born chicks when they are old enough.

Check out how our biologists protect Attwater’s Prairie-Chicken nests from predators in this quick video by Claire Hassler (USFWS). Click here for an audio-described version of this video.