What Is a Greater Prairie Chicken?
The greater prairie chicken is an unusual and increasingly rare bird, native to the American plains of the Midwest. Notable for startling flashes of color and its serious mating dance, the greater prairie chicken has many admirers and friends among the birding world. Habitat reduction and hunting did considerable damage to the wild population of these birds; several subspecies are extinct or critically endangered, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) declared the species vulnerable to extinction in 2008, noting a continued downward population trend.
