The Lesser Prairie Chicken in the Texas Panhandle

Trends in populations of lesser prairie chickens (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) in the Texas Panhandle were investigated by censusing drumming grounds annually on two study areas during a 10-year period, 1952-62, for comparison with data from a census of the same areas in 1942. Severe drops in populations came in 1952. The decline was triggered by onset of a major drouth lasting through 1956, but populations did not increase during a series of good rainfall years starting with 1957. Changing land-use practices are responsible for keeping lesser prairie chickens at low population levels in the Texas Panhandle. The more important of these are overgrazing of cattle range, particularly in dry weather, resulting in displacement of the tall grasses; accelerated programs of aerial spraying with herbicides for brush control; and combine harvesting of grain sorghum in place of storage by stacking and shocking in the field. The range of the lesser prairie chicken has been mapped (Fig. 1) as extending over most of the grasslands of western Texas, north and east of a line from Loving and Pecos counties east to Sutton and Kimble counties, and thence northeast through Concho, Callahan, and Clay counties (Texas Game, Fish, and Oyster Commission. 1945. Principal game birds and mammals of Texas. 147pp.). The exact limits of the original range of the lesser prairie chicken cannot be clearly defined, for few early records make a distinction between the lesser prairie chicken and the greater (T. cupido pinnatus), which was also a native of north and central Texas. Even during the time of wide distribution, the lesser prairie chicken may have been only a winter migrant in the southernmost part of its range in Texas. A number of the earliest settlers of Throckmorton and Young counties, when interviewed during the 1930's, were in agreement that the prairie chicken was confined to the sandy grasslands to the north during the breeding season. They knew the prairie chicken only as a winter migrant. Sometime about the turn of the last century, the lesser prairie chicken is believed to have reached its greatest abundance in the Texas Panhandle. A patchwork of homesteader farms interrupted the continuity of the grasslands without any great amount of infringement on the area of the latter, and the introduction of dryland grain sorghums provided a supplemental source of winter food for the prairie chicken. These years of greatest abundance were also years of unrestricted slaughter. Railways ran specials for sportsmen to such towns as Higgins in Lipscomb County and placed iced cars on sidings for preservation of the kill. By 1930, cultivated land was encroaching on Panhandle grasslands to the point of restricting the prairie chicken range and blocking ancestral travel patterns. In the meantime, prairie chickens had established the habit of feeding on winter grain shocks, thus becoming more vulnerable to hunters and indignant farmers alike. Finally, the great drouth beginning in 1934 accented the plight of the prairie chicken by depressing the population to a scarcity level hitherto unknown. The Texas Legislature halted legal hunting in 1937 by passage of a 5-year closed season. There has been no 'A contribution from the Wildlife Restoration Division, Texas Game and Fish Commission, Federal Aid Projects W-11-D and W-45-R.