says that there has been no definite trend toward increase or de- 

 crease in amount of precipitation in Kansas, but that since ap- 

 proximately 1890 there has been a trend toward warmer weather. 

 This trend could hardly be a factor in the extension of the range 

 of the greater prairie chicken into northwestern Kansas, because 

 this bird can winter successfully in colder areas (Canada). 



In the biennial reports of the State Department of Agriculture, 

 grain is mentioned as produced in Graham County as early as 1885 

 and in Wallace County as early as 1890. The increase of winter 

 foods, available to the greater prairie chicken, that accompanied 

 this farming might well explain this westward extension of the 

 range of the bird. It is thought that the changes in food and 

 cover, especially the reduction of the tall grasses, that accompanied 

 the dry years of the 1930-1940 decade, almost eliminated the greater 

 prairie chicken from northwestern Kansas. 



The disappearance of the greater prairie chicken from much of 

 eastern Kansas is attributable to the reduction of native grasslands 

 by plowing and by the natural succession of woodlands after prairie 

 fires were excluded. In areas where the greater prairie chicken 

 now occurs in eastern Kansas, grasslands always have been at least 

 as extensive as at present. The near elimination of the greater 

 prairie chicken in eastern Kansas prior to 1913 may have resulted 

 mostly from excessive hunting. 



Characteristics of the Range 

 and Present Distribution 



Information received from game protectors in 1950 indicated that 

 in four northwestern counties there were only scattered flocks of 

 greater prairie chickens containing few birds. Greater prairie 

 chickens in Washington, Clay, Ottawa, Saline, Ellsworth and Mc- 

 Pherson counties also proved to be in widely scattered flocks using 

 untilled parts of the Central Kansas Rolling Plains Region ( see Fly, 

 1946: map). According to Fly (1946:163) much of this area is 

 badly eroded. If needed soil conservation measures, including 

 range — and pasture-improvement, were applied there, the area 

 probably would become an important part of the range of the 

 greater prairie chicken in Kansas. 



With the assistance of the local game protectors and other per- 

 sons the principal range of the greater prairie chicken in Kansas 

 was mapped as shown in Figure 3. Since Bennitt (1939:495) and 

 Schwartz (1945:23) have ascertained that the greater prairie 

 chicken is absent where there are no permanent grasslands, the 

 presence of native grasslands was used to establish the margins of 



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