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Wildlife Officials Try To Boost Lesser Prairie Chicken Numbers In Colorado

DENVER (CBS4)- Colorado Parks and Wildlife is working to bring back the lesser prairie chicken. The grouse has been the focus of an ongoing legal battle over whether it warrants federal protection.

Biologists recently traveled to Kansas to capture some of the birds and relocate them to southeastern Colorado.

Lesser Prairie Chicken
Lesser prairie chicken (credit: dnr.state.co.us)

Colorado used to have hundreds of thousands of the lesser prairie chickens but habitat loss and climate brought its numbers down to the single digits.

Before re-releasing the birds to the grasslands of Colorado, CPW puts radio transmitters on them so they can be tracked.

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