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wildlife. Past reports of prairie chickens avoiding power lines, wind turbines, homes or other anthropogenic features in a landscape have been mostly anecdotal and not based on strong data, Powell said. Furthermore, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's guidelines of buffer zones around leks, locations where the prairie chickens do their dancing and breeding in the spring, are based on information known for sage grouse around oil or natural gas facilities, which are much louder and more active than wind turbines. Thus, in 2011, the Commission called for a study on the effects of wind turbines on greater prairie-chickens in the Sandhills. Powell, with a team of other faculty members, graduate students and technicians at UNL, began research in late 2012. They chose the NPPD wind farm south of Ainsworth as their study site, as it was the only one completed in the Sandhills at the time. "Wind farms could provide extra income for farmers and ranchers. It's a clean energy source," Powell said. "So on one side, you want to be able to allow those things, if possible, but on the flip side, you also want to protect species. So our research was important to be able to weigh those two things and provide better recommendations in the Sandhills and in Nebraska." Project Design The project had three purposes: to provide information to aid in the management of prairie grouse in Nebraska in relation to wind-power development, to be able to make informed decisions regarding the sitting of towers and facilities, and lastly, to determine at what distance from facility infrastructure are effects on prairie chickens negligible. The data collected included observing bird movement relative to structures during breeding, nesting and brooding; the collection of fecal samples and feathers to test for stress hormone levels at variable distances from the facility; raptor and mammalian predator surveys to assess mortality on grouse around wind turbines; and sound analyses to look for changes in male booming behaviors around turbine noise. The project was mostly funded by the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, which includes excise taxes on guns, ammunition and archery equipment. "The prairie chicken is a game bird in Nebraska so those monies from the PR fund could be used for it," Powell said. "Interestingly, in other states where prairie chickens aren't a game bird, they couldn't use those funds for a research project. We also had a student who was funded by the National Science Foundation to do telemetry work." In 2012, Commission District Wildlife Biologist Bill Vodehnal of Bassett began reconnaissance work to consult with landowners and NPPD in Ainsworth. Vodehnal had been monitoring greater prairie-chickens and sharp-tailed grouse in his district several years prior, and during the project, he assisted in educating the researchers on how to capture and handle birds. Site visits to locate leks were also conducted by a core team of researchers at UNL, which included Powell, Dr. Mary Bomberger Brown and Dr. Walter H. Schacht. Dr. Jennifer Smith was hired as the post-doctoral research associate who would manage field operations with graduate students and technicians. Field data collection took place from late February through Aug. 1 of 2013 and 2014 at the NPPD wind farm near Ainsworth, which is located on private lands. Field Work To collect data, Smith and two graduate students from UNL – Cara Whalen and Jocelyn Olney – lived in Ainsworth for five months out of each year. Though they raised a few eyebrows initially, the ranching town of nearly 2,000 eventually warmed up to them and affectionately referred to them as "the chicken girls." Smith, who was born and raised in the United Kingdom and earned a doctorate at the University of Birmingham in England, made the shift to Nebraska after a short post-doctoral study at Virginia Tech. Throughout her academic career, birds have always been her predominant interest. So when Powell advertised for a research associate, the prospect of studying wind turbines and prairie chickens in the Sandhills of Nebraska, a place where Smith had never set foot MAP COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN 48 NEBRASKAland • NOVEMBER 2016 Range map of the greater prairie-chicken with past and current distribution areas.