The ancient dance of Wisconsin’s sharp-tailed grouse
Clip | 5m 27sVideo has Closed Captions
DNR biologist Nancy Christel uses animal behavior to save an endangered Wisconsin species.
DNR wildlife biologist Nancy Christel surveys sharp-tailed grouse at the Namekagon Barrens Wildlife Area near Spooner. Her groundbreaking research reveals how understanding animal behavior is the key to saving one of Wisconsin’s most endangered species.
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Wisconsin Life is a local public television program presented by PBS Wisconsin
Funding for Wisconsin Life is provided by the Wooden Nickel Fund, Mary and Lowell Peterson, A.C.V. and Mary Elston Family, Leon Price & Lily Postel, Stanley J. Cottrill Fund, UW...
The ancient dance of Wisconsin’s sharp-tailed grouse
Clip | 5m 27sVideo has Closed Captions
DNR wildlife biologist Nancy Christel surveys sharp-tailed grouse at the Namekagon Barrens Wildlife Area near Spooner. Her groundbreaking research reveals how understanding animal behavior is the key to saving one of Wisconsin’s most endangered species.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- Nancy Christel: Usually, we start at about 4 o'clock in the morning.
- Angela Fitzgerald: Under the cover of darkness, wildlife biologist Nancy Christel drives north from her home base in Spooner to the Namekagon Barrens Wildlife Area.
- We wanna be on site at least 45 minutes before sunlight.
This morning, oh my gosh, it was barely in time.
- Angela: Barely a heartbeat before the landscape begins a wild awakening.
[grouse call] Long before she sees them in the moonlight, she can hear subtle tremors on the prairie.
[grouse call] - [whispers] It's a beautiful day.
[jaunty music] Sharp-tailed grouse are pretty rare species in Wisconsin.
- Angela: Nancy bears witness to an ancient rhythm as old as the natural world.
An intricate courtship dance from one of our state's most unique birds.
- Nancy: All the guys hype each other up and they start dancing around and puffing out their nice purple sac.
They put their pointy white tail up in the air, and then they stick out their nice orange eyebrow.
And their goal is to do the best dance.
I love to dance, so to have a bird that really has some good steps and can bring some liveliness to the grounds, I think that that is pretty cool.
- Angela: The male grouse are the only dancers, and they work the prairie floor to attract females.
- Nancy: The females seem to act like, "Ah, no big deal.
I'm not even looking at you."
But of course, they're watching and they're paying attention.
- Angela: The champions of the grassland hold their dancing duel in a prairie location called a lek.
- Ours had 22 males on it and 6 females that came this morning, but of all those males, you just get one lucky guy, and that one lucky guy is the only one that is going to be sharing its genes out in the world.
- Angela: Each spring in the pre-dawn chill, Nancy and her team do a survey of sharp-tailed grouse.
- Nancy: The reason we do it is to really keep track of what we have for a population of what is really a rare species.
- Angela: She counts the birds and looks for expansion of traditional mating grounds.
- Nancy: So, the sharp-tailed grouse, I think, are really cool.
The females come and visit, they fly up into trees, they run along the edge, and so it's really tough to be counting the females.
- Angela: For more than 26 years, Nancy has brought her passion for wildlife to the Department of Natural Resources.
Her job: to manage this ecosystem, ensuring all native species can thrive and survive in this sanctuary.
- I come to work and I know that I have habitat that needs to be maintained and I have species that need to be managed.
So, for me, a great day is when I'm able to go out and see kind of the benefits of all the work that we do to manage the property and have it for the public to come and view the sharp-tails.
That is a really good day.
- Angela: Nancy's workplace is a wildlife area filled with a desolate beauty that you will not find anywhere else on the planet.
- Nancy: It is true that this is the only place in the world that you can go and find pine/oak barrens in these northwest sands.
It also is a globally rare habitat type.
[bird caws] And it's got such a diversity of grasses and flowers and shrubs.
- Angela: Nancy has a deep connection to this untamed wilderness and the creatures that inhabit it.
- You'd never have seen a show like this when I first moved here.
They might be thinking about leaving.
[wings flutter] Pretty cool, aren't they?
I get satisfaction out of my job.
[tent zips] When I go home to my family, I can go home happy that I had a good day and just feel as though I'm making a difference, even if it's a small, little thing.
Like, that just makes me feel good all the time.
- Angela: Reclaiming this unusual landscape is a job both rich in research and rewards, and that is Nancy's core motivation.
- When they're out dancing and everything, they end up just kind of losing feathers here and there, and then we can use that for genetics.
If you're going to do something in life, every day, you should be something that's fun and enjoyable.
It's a cool-looking one.
Those kinds of things are pretty great.
[grouse calls]
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Wisconsin Life is a local public television program presented by PBS Wisconsin
Funding for Wisconsin Life is provided by the Wooden Nickel Fund, Mary and Lowell Peterson, A.C.V. and Mary Elston Family, Leon Price & Lily Postel, Stanley J. Cottrill Fund, UW...