AttwatersPrairieChicken_TexasCoastalPrairie_Marrack_David_HoustonTX_22October2003_Reel2279.wav

David Marrack [00:00:01] Prairie chickens are a very fascinating bird because we're trying to re-establish them in numbers in a habitat that isn't the one they developed in. They developed in tallgrass prairie.

David Marrack [00:00:17] Reed,what's his name? A man, Buechler, who wrote, wrote. Well, the bit of the book I know about is is describing leaving Houston and riding to Austin. And he describes, "the trees I left behind along the ends of the bayous. From there on, it was through the grass that was belly-high to my horse, and often over my head."

David Marrack [00:00:45] Now, the prairie chickens lived on the ground in the bottom of that canopy, or whatever you want to call that blanket. So predators couldn't find them. The raccoons and the possums and all the other people might eat them. Even the young couldn't find them. Fire ants weren't here. And they developed and evolved as a bird or ground bird living under this thick blanket where they can hide away very easily.

David Marrack [00:01:17] You grazed it off so now the density of the grasses, and I was out there last Sunday, Saturday, is not high enough to really cover them up. McCartney rose has grown, grown in. It's not a typical native species of prairies. It's so dense the birds can't get through it and underneath it, so it's absolutely no protection. And raccoons and possums and everyone else can walk through this grass and find the young. And we've got fire ants which eat them.

David Marrack [00:01:50] Several years ago, a group of us, at the request of the Fish and Wildlife Service, swept a square mile with a chain and ropes and what have you, walking one morning: two birds in the densest place in this country where there are prairie chickens.

David Marrack [00:02:09] I think, we think, their numbers have gone up since then, but that's how bad it was.