Dead Of Winter Knowledge Quest. Lesser Prairie-chicken: Fighting to Keep this Species in Colorado

Lesser Prairie-chicken: Fighting to Keep this Species in Colorado with Jonathan Reitz.

The Lesser Prairie-chicken is an icon of Colorado's southeastern prairies. Due to a long list of environmental and anthropogenic factors, they nearly become extirpated in extreme southeast Colorado and southwestern Kansas, in an area that was considered one of the species' core areas. Additional threats are on the horizon, making their future unclear. How are wildlife managers fighting to bring back this species in southeast Colorado?

Jonathan Reitz is a Wildlife Biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife in Lamar, CO. He has been working on Lesser Prairie-chicken conservation since 2006. Jonathan helps manage, research, and conserve a long list of big game, small game, and threatened/endangered species in southeast Colorado. He was also one of the keynote speakers at the 2023 Lamar CFO Convention.

Date: Thursday, November 20th

Time: 7:00 pm

Dr. Rob Blenk is the Assistant Professor of wetland and waterfowl ecology at Cal Poly Humboldt. Rob is a native of Washington State, and has conducted ornithological field work in much of North America and beyond—from studying pelagic seabird nesting in New Zealand to banding puffins in the United Kingdom. Rob’s current interests involve the development and application of new techniques and technologies to refine and improve monitoring of waterfowl populations—current examples include the use of uncrewed aerial vehicles to survey for breeding harlequin ducks and using genetic markers to connect wintering brant to their regions of natal origin. Rob is an avid birder, backpacker, and woodworker.