This is for a national magazine for their front-of-book travel/science section.
Sorry for the quick turnaround but I need to turn this in tomorrow evening.
It's short at least! It's very slightly over word count, should be 250. I want
to know if there's anything unclear, or that you think I really should
explain/ie you have questions about? I can cut in some places to answer
questions so just let me know what you think :) Thanks! PS Do you get a decent
image of what these things look like? There will be a photo though...
HOUSTON - In the first rays of morning light, a male Attwater's prairie chicken
erects his tail and neck feathers, inflates his orange neck sacs and emits a
low boom, not unlike the sound of blowing into a Coke bottle. Then the dance
begins. He stamps wildly, making a rapid 180-degree turn. In the distance,
another male starts. Before long, females wander over. "They are very
nonchalant, appearing to pay no mind, just kinda teasing them," says Terry
Rossignol, Manager of the Attwater's Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge,
40 miles west of Houston, and one of North America's last patches of coastal
tallgrass prairie. "The males, on the other hand, will explode into a dancing
frenzy when any females show up."
The Refuge hosts the free Attwater's Prairie Chicken Festival the second
weekend in April. They set up viewing scopes within 100 yards of booming,
stamping, dancing chickens. Booming season starts in early February and runs
through April and chances are above average to see a prairie chicken this year;
although they have 10,528 acres to roam, a few have hunkered down near the
self-guided auto loop. Forty miles south of Houston, the Nature Conservancy's
2,300-acre Texas City Prairie Preserve on Galveston Bay has the only other wild
population, and offer free tours twice weekly. "Currently, the birds are in
dire straits," says Rossignol. Both locations release captive-bred birds each
year, but hawks and owls kill up to half the population each year, not to
mention imported fire ants devouring newly hatched chicks. "With less than 50
birds in the wild at two locations, anything could wipe them out in the blink
of an eye. Hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005 really put this int!
o perspective." {BY WENDEE HOLTCAMP}
Wendee Holtcamp, M.S. Wildlife Ecology * http://www.wendeeholtcamp.com
* 6-wk Online Writing Course Starts Nov 24! *
