The lesser prairie-chicken is a species of conservation priority due to long-term population and available habitat declines. The Lesser Prairie Chicken Initiative (LPCI) has provided successful on the ground habitat management. The NRCS initiated the LPCI in an effort to retain expired CRP acres in Kansas in grass cover and transform these acres into working lands. The Initiative though is not limited to this goal and has conditioned 27 NRCS practices to provide an overall positive benefit to LEPC conservation with three overriding goals: retention of expired CRP as working grazing lands; control of invasive woody species; and grazing management to improve LEPC habitat and sustainability of grazing lands. This is accomplished through a new means of doing business for NRCS. By ensuring the inclusion of targeting, current science, new research, and evaluation of progress the LPCI provides a legitimate opportunity for LEPC conservation. This presentation discusses this approach to benefiting a species of concern through a voluntary science supported approach.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.