Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1904-02-26
PRAIRIE CHICKENS GONE.
Birds Once So Numerous i'm the State
of Illinois No Longer to
BE Found.


Fifteen years ago the greatest winter
sport in central Illinois was chicken
shooting. Hunters who tramped through
snow-covered corn fields and over the
stubble fields easily could bag in ten
hour hunt enough chickens to last a fam
lily week Things have changed great
ly since then, according to an old fellow
from down near Champaign, says the
Chicago Inter Ocean, who was telling
several men in a sporting goods store the
other day of the gradual but certain ex-
termination of the prairie chickens in
this state.
1.-The man who goes hunting in the
prairie counties to-day is likely to kill
lot of time and burn good deal Of gun
powder shooting at pewees and field
mice, but that is about the biggest game
he will find. Fifteen years ago the prai
RE .swarmed with chickens. They used
to flock on the hills in the morning and
hide in the corn during the day through
out the summer I've killed as many as
80 chickens in 4 single Cay. During the
winter we used to go along the hedges
or into the corn fields where some shell
ter was afforded the big fowl. 1t was no
trouble to get as many of them as we
wanted. l have gone along the hedges
on a cold Cay. and Killed them with d
pi,chfork.
I've been hurting four or five times
this winter and haven killed chicken
I haven't seen more than half a dozen
since oat harvest Some people argue
that the chickens have all been killed off
by the hunters. but that is Iot true. The
main cause for tneir disappearance is
that the country has become SO thickly
settled during the last decade that there
is no wide expanse of prairie land, such
as the chickens need. At the present time
there is hardly quarter section of land
in the state that Goes not contain a
farm house Fifteen years ago many
farms consisted of $40 acres and often
covered a much greater area.
'As the farms have been cut up into
smaller farms, and as the country has
become much more densely populated,
the checkers have disappeared 1t is
foolish to think they have all been killed.
1 am one who believes they have mi
grated to the west, where they have plen-
ty OF open country.
LAS point in favor of this argument
[ want to tell of the hunting we did one
winter. That will go to prove that chick
ems do migrate. That winter, it was in
the early 'Sas. we organized a sort of
country gun club. During the year we
killed hundreds and hundreds of prai-
RE chickens Every one said that the
shooting in that country would be no
good for the next four or five years They
were wrong. The next fall you coul0n't
tell the difference. In fact, there were
more chickens in that reighbcrhooG
than ever before. L know they were not
Matched there, for we had killed too many
of the old birds. 1t is certain they came
from a distance.
We can never hope to see them plen-
tiful again, TO matter how rigid the
game laws may be made 1t is ECt the
hunters that are bothering them, it is
the rapid and permanent increase in
population Of the state. AS far as the
prairie chicken is concerned, the country
has become as satisfactory q place TO
live as the city would be-