Missouri Prairie Wildlife

Hi Everybody,

Here are your questions that you had about some of the animals that might have used Two Mile Prairie in the past. You all asked our expert some really good questions today.  These answer some of your questions about animals that we will have to answer in the next few weeks!

Question: How many prairie chickens are there and were there?

There used to be hundreds of thousands of prairie chickens in Missouri.  Now they will soon be extirpated or gone in our state.  There are fewer than 500 prairie chickens left in Missouri.  They are found in small, isolated populations.  Greater prairie chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) are found in prairies and grasslands.  They definitely like native prairies, but if you manage your non-native grasslands for them, they will also live there.  The prairie chicken really needs large areas of grassland that is full of different types of plants.

Click here to go to the Missouri Department of Conservation’s website and learn more about the Greater Prairie Chicken.

Sources:

http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/greater-prairie-chicken

Question: How long have bison been around?

“How long” or “how old” questions are really hard to answer.  Scientists are always finding new fossils or information that changes how old they think something like an animal species might be.

Bison (Bos bison) is a species that has been around for a long time. Humans hunted species of bison that are now extinct. There are several kinds of bison that used to be found in North America, some lived on the plains and some in the woods.  Bison migrated across the land bridge between North America and Asia sometime around 500,000 years ago. 

Only a single, small herd of bison live in Missouri.  There are about 100 animals living at Prairie State Park in Barton County.  Any other bison in Missouri are living on private ranches.  There are around 200,000 bison live on preserves and ranches.  

Click here to go to the Missouri Department of Conservation website to learn more about bison in Missouri.

Sources:

http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/american-bison

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/american-bison/

http://library.sandiegozoo.org/factsheets/bison/bison.htm

Are you interested in making your own animal trail guide?  Click this link to find a sample Animal Trail Guide that you can copy and fill out.