March 2021 • Nebraskaland 61
Male greater prairie-chickens square
off to defend their territories on a lek
created by landowner Dan Leuenberger.
It's rare for prairie-chickens to adopt a
man-made lek for their spring mating
displays.
something, Leuenberger said. "As you get older, you still have that objective,
but you start thinking about, 'How did these birds get here? What do they
need in order to have more of them?'," he said.
Leuenberger had the chance to explore that interest when he inherited 91
acres of the family farm, located in southeastern Nebraska. He decided to
put all of his land into the Conservation Reserve Program, which provides
landowners with rental payments for taking land out of agricultural
production and instead restoring grassland habitat.
Leuenberger enrolled some of his cropland in the State Acres for Wildlife
Enhancement practice, an option under continuous CRP, to create greater
prairie-chicken habitat. As part of his enrollment, he met with Anna
Ferguson, a resource conservationist for the USDA's Natural Resources
Conservation Service, to plan how to establish, manage and maintain the
project.
Together they sparked the idea to create a prairie-chicken lek on
Leuenberger's property, in addition to the program's usual habitat
requirements. Leuenberger already had many conversations with his bird
hunting partner, Jim Neville, about getting prairie grouse to use his property
for a lek, and he had a promising site. They knew greater prairie-chickens
Dan Leuenberger of Lincoln stands by a viewing blind on a prairie-chicken
lek he established on his Johnson County property.
PHOTO
BY
RENAE
BLUM
PHOTO
BY
ERIC
FOWLER
