North Dakota Outdoors: Prairie Wildlife

I’m guilty, and I’m sure I’m not alone, of overlooking some of North Dakota’s rare wildlife species.

I’ve never seen a whooping crane, but someday when I least expect it, I’m hoping to steal a rare glimpse of the albatross-sized white birds that migrate through the Dakotas each spring and fall.

The same goes for big predators like wolves and mountain lions. I’m pretty confident I caught a glimpse of a wolf a decade ago on the pristine prairie of the Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge in northern Mountrail County.

While such chances to witness something out of the ordinary are memorable, most of us are more likely to define a rare moment in terms of a 10-pound walleye or 20-pound catfish, or a trophy bull elk or bighorn sheep. Each instance in itself is a piece of the pie that makes me cherish where I live and the opportunities we have.

But there’s more to pie than just the piece on your plate. There’s a multitude of ingredients – like flour, baking soda, fruit, etc. -- that, when mixed together, create the dessert.

And so it goes for the long-billed curlew. Yes, I said the long-billed curlew. How is that connected to a pie and trophy animals? Well, it’s species like the long-billed curlew, found only in extreme southwestern North Dakota, that combine with the other ingredients – elk, moose, bighorn sheep, pronghorn – and a host of other species, and create the mosaic of our outdoors.

The long-billled curlew is just that. It has a long bill and would appear at first glance to more likely be found perusing the shoreline of a central North Dakota pothole. But its likeness to many kinds of shorebirds, the curlew is a bird of the western grasslands.

That’s just one of the reasons the North Dakota Game and Fish Department is funding a study designed to learn more about the long-billed curlew. It’s all part of the bigger picture made possible by the federal State Wildlife Grants or SWG program. In a state such as North Dakota, where funding for projects related to nonhunted species is extremely limited, SWG is a significant contributor to the future welfare of some nongam species.

Understand that curlews are not hunted or actively managed by the Game and Fish Department. But it’s still important to know the curlew’s historic range and a population estimate so as to more accurately gauge future long-billed curlew trends.

I’d venture to guess most citizens will never see a long-billed curlew, and even if they do, they may not even realize its significance. The SWG program, however, is giving us a better assessment of the health, population and status of a variety of species with which we may not be familiar, but are still a part of the prairies that we all call home.

Leier is a biologist. He can be reached by email: dleier@nd.gov 

Photo Credit:  North Dakota Game & Fish.