A national wildlife refuge needed for Lesser Prairie-Chickens

I am going to devote another post to Lesser Prairie-Chickens. They are such an important part of the sand-sage and grassland habitats of SE Colorado that they deserve more attention, especially when they are under such a threat with the pending BLM oil & gas drilling lease sale pending.

The following is a quote from my favorite ornithologist, Paul Johnsgard, who has prolifically about many bird species including those of the grasslands of the U.S.:

"A new national wildlife refuge, or comparable state or private preserve, is certainly needed for the lesser prairiechicken. Such a preserve could well be located in the now unprotected sandsage grasslands of the Arkansas River Valley from Garden City west to at least the Colorado border, a region representing the best of the species’ remaining Kansas range, and one not yet seriously affected by cattle overgrazing or the incursion of center-pivot agriculture. Such a preserve would offer the best hope of saving at least the Kansas flock of the lesser prairie-chicken
from the disastrous recent history of the Attwater’s prairiechicken, when the federal government delayed far too long before starting to acquire critical habitat for its preservation. Protecting the lesser prairie-chicken there would also help protect the rapidly declining national populations of lark, grasshopper and Cassin’s sparrows, burrowing owls and black-tailed prairie dogs. It thus encapsulates the entire sandsage ecosystem, one of the rarest and least studied of the Great Plains vegetational complexes."

Here, here.

SeEtta