Anyone ever see a Sharptail in KS
- Thread starter duckn66
- Start date
The state tried to re-introduce them back in the 80's. They were originally abundant. There almost have to be a few, I've shot sharpies in Nebraska a few miles north of the Kansas border. Haven't seen them in Kansas since the 80's and then in Smith, Phillips, and Jewell Counties. I have not spent much time south of the border farther west to know.
fsentkilr
Active member
According to this sharptails havent been in Kansas since the 1930's. I vaguely remember them trying to reintroduce them in the 80's, but I don't think they had much success. http://www.jstor.org/pss/3782767
When I say I have shot them a few miles north of the Kansas border, I mean less than 8 miles as a grouse flys from the actual border, by map, and in two different counties, Harlan and Nuckolls. In Nuckols, it was an extremely bad winter, and we saw a flock sitting on the ridge top of an abandoned barn, in the middle of a piece of prairie grass right on a gravel road. Since sharpies are known to do short migrations dependent upon weather, food source, and unknown reasons, I have no doubt that an occasional sharptail or flock cross the border. If your question is a sustainable population of some kind I doubt it exists. However there was discovered in Ray County, Missouri a flock of greater prairie chickens in the middle of intensely farmed ground, with a lek on the top of a Missouri River dike, surviving where they were thought to be gone 100 years ago. If they are not present and breeding now, there are specific reasons why there won't be sharpies in Kansas ever again, but that's a different topic.
BrownDogsCan2
Well-known member
On the flip side will lesser prairie chickens return to Nebraska? They appear to be 3 or 4 good years away.
Is CRP the driving factor, fostering the expansion of LPC's but limiting that of sharptails.
Why do PC's establish new lek's yet sharptails do not?
Please excuse my ignorance. The only information I could find, was 1 page of Randy Rogers ? paper describing the reasons for the failure in the last attempted sharptail stocking in Kansas.
Thank you for any information. BDC2
Is CRP the driving factor, fostering the expansion of LPC's but limiting that of sharptails.
Why do PC's establish new lek's yet sharptails do not?
Please excuse my ignorance. The only information I could find, was 1 page of Randy Rogers ? paper describing the reasons for the failure in the last attempted sharptail stocking in Kansas.
Thank you for any information. BDC2
What in the world gets you thinking that there will be lessers in Nebraska? Nebraska, is well populated with greaters now. Lessers are a bird of sand -sage prairie, and near as I know never inhabited any part of Nebraska. You have a more historical arguement for sage grouse in Nebraska, since at least there used to be some. Lessers are the absolutely most endangered of the native grouse. We are fighting a battle to save them in areas of former abundance, eastern New Mexico, extreme West Texas, Oklahoma panhandle, and along a narrow strip of the Kansas border, corner of Colorado, and parts of SW Kansas, where they are found along with greaters into west central Kansas and interbreed there. None of the prairie grouse establish "new" leks from virgin ground per say, they expand by colonizing adjacent habitat to established populations. In Missouri, restoration of token populations of greaters have been established using "old" prairie chicken range on unplowed prairie sites with existing leks, interestingly enough even when these leks have been devoid of activity for some years, they are utilized. The lessers are so rigid in their behavior that a statistically significant number are killed annually by flying into barbed wire fences, telephone lines, and hit by cars. Any structure in their native territory is a threat, they have been known to abandon range within a 1/4 mile of any new structure, refusing to nest in the vicinity.
BrownDogsCan2
Well-known member
12 Years ago first leks in Gove county. This year north of I-70http://www.kansas.com/2011/09/04/2001761/lesser-prairie-chickens-found.html
It appears that their range is as not far South as originally thought, with some regional advancement. From what i understand the last of the lessers in Nebraska coincided timewise with that of Sharptails in Kansas.
It appears that their range is as not far South as originally thought, with some regional advancement. From what i understand the last of the lessers in Nebraska coincided timewise with that of Sharptails in Kansas.
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Go read the data and info from the North American Grouse Partnership online. become a contributor if you like, nothing would make me happier than to repopulate the plains with prairie chickens, even at the expense of pheasants. According to their range site lessers were fringe inhabitants of extreme SW Nebraska right after settlement and the coming of the plow. Accordingly they show a remnant population of sharptails right where I said I shot some in the 1980's, and again in 2008, barely across the Nebraska border.
westksbowhunter
Well-known member
We see alot of prairie chickens here in the nw part of the state. To be honest, I thought they were lessers but from the data it would appear that they are greaters. My bad I guess.
Might be hybrids! Without DNA testing we will never know. Hard to test DNA after the fried prairie chicken dinner!