By Mike Surbrugg
aostmeyer@joplinglobe.com
GOLDEN CITY, Mo. — Before 2003, Lowell Pugh saw up to 24 prairie chickens in flocks during winter months on nearby Golden Prairie.
Bird numbers dropped sharply the next year and remained low. He said he saw no more than three at any one time this winter.
Pugh does not know why prairie chicken numbers declined, but said people have told him of seeing small numbers of prairie chickens in other areas, too.
“They may be dispersing,” he said.
Justin Johnson, executive director of the Missouri Prairie Foundation, based in Columbia, estimates Missouri has fewer than 500 prairie chickens, with a decline escalating in the late 1990s. Years ago, the state was home to thousands of the birds.
The Missouri Prairie Foundation owns 2,569 acres at 14 different sites and manages another 1,400 acres for neighbors, Johnson said. The prairies range from 37 acres to the 630 acres of Golden Prairie, which is southwest of Golden City.
“We are on the hook to take care of about 4,000 acres,” Johnson said.
Missouri could by 2008 ask Kansas, which has a much larger prairie chicken population, if it would spare some birds for relocation.
The Missouri Prairie Foundation is working with the Missouri Department of Conservation on a project that seeks to have a sustained annual population of 3,000 prairie chickens over a span of 10 years, Johnson said.
Protected sites suitable for prairie chickens in various areas would reduce the impact of damage from a hail storm that could kill 10 percent of the current prairie chicken numbers, Johnson said.
Last winter’s snow and ice followed by the April freeze apparently did little to reduce bird numbers.
“Those prairie chickens that are left are pretty tough,” he said.
Most of Missouri’s prairie chickens live along a line from Sedalia to Joplin, he said.
Prairie patchwork
Just northeast of Golden City in western Dade County is the Penn-Sylvania Prairie with 160 acres and the Coyne Prairie, with 80 acres. Coyne Prairie has recently been obtained for $96,000. The foundation borrowed money to get the land and still owes half the purchase price.
Information is available from the Missouri Prairie Foundation, P.O. Box 200, Columbia, MO 65205.
