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WATSON, MINN. -- With a bowl full of stars heralding a warm May day to come, the hush on Chippewa Prairie is broken only by the occasional squawk of distant pheasants.
But a few minutes past 5 a.m., a dozen shadowy shapes appear on an acre of grass, and the cacophony begins -- male greater prairie chickens cackling, shrieking and humming in a springtime ritual as old as the prairie itself.
For the chickens, a species rare enough to be of "special concern" in Minnesota, this urgent clamor means they're hopeful they'll find the perfect mate. But for wildlife manager Dave Trauba, watching the "booming" in a nearby blind, it's the worrisome sound of decline.
Helped by two decades of government conservation payments, Minnesota now has more than 3.5 million acres of grassland -- a fragile revival of the vanished landscape the prairie chicken calls home. But record-high crop prices have led landowners to cultivate land they have set aside for a generation.
Once again, the prairie is falling to the plow. And prairie advocates fear a farming frenzy will lay waste to years of effort to restore populations of unique plants and animals, exemplified by the colorful and noisy prairie chicken.
"There's a lot of pressure on the prairie. Right now I'm very pessimistic," said Trauba, manager of the DNR's Lac qui Parle Wildlife Management Area.
"The birds are emblematic of the prairie. And it's not just about prairie chickens. If you want to hear meadowlarks singing or marbled godwits or upland sandpipers, or harriers, you need to have grasslands. If you want to have pheasants, you need to have grass. If you want to have ducks, you need to have grass."
"And so we need to make a way to recognize grasslands for what they are: They're really our heritage here in western Minnesota."
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