Pte OW BON BULLETIN 
Published Quarterly by the 
eee NeOse oe eA Lob ON, Ss OCTE TY 
ROOSEVELT ROAD AND LAKE SHORE DRIVE, CHICAGO 5, ILL. 
Number 117 March, 1961 
Will the Booming of the Prairie Chicken 
Continue in Illinois? 
By J. W. GALBREATH 
The Need for Action 
Twenty species of wildlife in America have become extinct since Colonial 
times. Fifty-seven species are seriously threatened. The Prairie Chicken 
is included as far as our Illinois wildlife heritage is concerned. I recently 
covered much of the present range of the remaining flocks. Habitat changes 
are taking place even in the remote areas of the Prairie Chicken range. 
Red top grass seed prices fluctuate and the crop is difficult to harvest. Corn 
and beans are better suited to modern mechanized agriculture, with mile 
long corn furrows and bare fence rows; hedges are being pulled out; and 
remaining grasslands are being plowed. Remnant flocks of Prairie Chickens 
are being crowded onto islands of ungrazed or lightly grazed pasture lands, 
into backward farming areas, unimproved red top fields, and waste lands. 
Wildlife biologists know the prob- 
lems and know the solution: unmo- 
lested nesting and brood-raising 
grassland is needed today. Tomorrow, 
lime and phosphate may be applied 
to the remaining red top areas to 
convert them to modernized agricul- 
ture. The Prairie Chicken habitat will 
be destroyed, and the Prairie Chicken 
in Illinois will become extinct before 
our very eyes. We may rant about 
the market hunters and others who 
wiped out the Passenger Pigeon in 
the late nineteenth century, but a 
new tragedy gradually is being en- 
. acted in an age when we are re- 
sponsible and can still reverse the situation. 
The Prairie Chicken can be saved. It will take time and money, but in 
this great state we cannot afford to sit idly by and let this species become 
extinct. We know what to do; much remains to be done. It must be done, 
and quickly. Our children’s children will bless us for preserving this por- 
tion of our rich American wildlife heritage. 
Need for a Grasslands Laboratory 
Illinois has been called “the prairie state.’ As the early pioneers pushed 
their covered wagons westward they were amazed to see the waving blue- 
stem grasses in much of the central and northern part of the state. The 
abundant flora and fauna of the open prairie was glorious to behold. We 
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