Mastodon Dung Fascinates Me

[MarkGelbart]

I agree with the ag practices part, hunting , don't know, was it a market bird? I believe you are incorrect about the redtail, it is not a natural predator, and its method of hunting by perching and then pouncing down on the prey, is foreign to the prairie chicken. As I understand it, prairie chickens look ahead for danger, such as from coyotes and prairie hawks, which soar. They don't look up, making them easy prey for a hawk. If one hawk eats one chicken a day, and thousands of hawks move onto the prairie, you can see it can make for a serious dent in the population.

Brent Ashcraft

According to an article at http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cjin2-1.html , in 1873 Chicago markets bought 325,000 prairie chickens for $3.25 a dozen. I believe 325,000 prairie chickens killed in one year is far more than the number of prairie chickens than exist today. They reportedly tasted really good.

The Cato Institute is a conservative think tank and I don't agree with the article, but market hunting for prairie chickens did occur.

The heath hen, a subspecies of prairie chicken, was common in Massachusetts until Colonial times until it became extinct due to overhunting. I think there were and are lots of red tailed hawks in Massachusetts.

I'll have to dig through my Marty Stouffer's Wild American dvds. I think I recall a scene from an episode when prairie chickens were showing defensive behavior when being attacked from the air.