The Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma have some of the largest remaining Greater Prairie-Chicken populations; however, recent research reports that populations in this area are declining at alarming rates. A shift in rangeland management to annual spring burning and intensive early grazing practices is hypothesized as a leading cause of declines. Therefore, we investigated how managing for heterogeneity, where only a portion of the landscape is burned each year and season of fires varies, influenced survival of Greater Prairie-Chickens. Our research was conducted at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Osage County, Oklahoma from March 2011 - August 2012. We trapped adult birds on 8 leks from mid-March to early May. We captured 57 birds and fitted 16 g radio-transmitters to 54 (n = 27 females; n = 27 males). Daily survival rates (DSR) for radio-tracked adults was greater for females than males (female = 0.972
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.