Heath Hen

Heath hen ( cupido cupido Tympanuchus )

The heath hen ( cupido cupido Tympanuchus ), sometimes referred to as Cupidohuhn, was a distinctive subspecies of prairie chicken ( Tympanuchus cupido ), a major North American bird of the family of pheasant -like. Maybe it was also an independent Art

Heath hens were in historical times in the overgrown with bushes, barren heaths of the coastal region of New England, may spread from the southernmost tip of New Hampshire to northern Virginia and in prehistoric times to Florida. The prairie chickens on the other hand inhabit prairies of Texas north to Indiana to North Dakota and South Dakota. In earlier times, the distribution area extended to the central southern Canada.

Heath hens were tremendously frequently during colonialism in their habitat. They have been extensively hunted as a food source. In fact, many experts suspect that the dinner of the Pilgrim Fathers were not for Thanksgiving from wild turkeys, but of heath hens. In the late 18th century had the heath hen a reputation as a cheap and abundant existing "poor people food".

Description

The heath hen saw the Great prairie chicken very similar, but it was a little smaller ( Pearson 1917). The length of the bird was about 43 inches and the weight was 900 grams.

Extinction

Due to an enormous hunting pressure, the population declined rapidly. Maybe in the 1840s, but in any case, from 1870, the heath hen had disappeared on the mainland. There were only 300 copies on the island of Martha 's Vineyard off Massachusetts available, but 1890 was the stock dropped to 120 to 200 birds, mainly due to predation by cats and poaching. In the late 19th century were still 70 copies left. These have now been protected by a strict ban on hunting and 1908, the " Heath Hen Reserve" (now Manuel F. Correllus State Forest called ) was established. Until the mid- 1910s, the population had risen to almost 2,000 birds and their Balzarenen were a tourist attraction. However, a devastating fire during the breeding season in 1916, severe winter, inbreeding, an excess of males and apparently entrained by Histomoniasis poultry pathogen ( Blackhead ) could break down the stock. After a final rest in 1920 to 600 copies began last fall for the population. 1927 a dozen heath hen had only survived, of which only two females. End of 1927, only five specimens were left in spite of the best precautions, all of whom were males. After December 8, 1928 apparently survived only one male ( Gross, 1931), which was nicknamed " Booming Ben". It was early in the breeding season on 11 March 1932 in his ancestral lek between West Tisbury and today's Martha 's Vineyard Airport last observed, and died under mysterious circumstances only hours or days later at the age of about eight years.

Heath hens were among the first birds that wanted to protect Americans. Already in 1791, a bill " to protect the heath hen and other wild game ," submitted to the New York Parliament. Although the efforts to preserve the heath hen from extinction, ultimately remained unsuccessful, it paved the way for the conservation of other species of birds. Ironically, the establishment of reserves on the open bush land, what then was called the " Great Plains ", have the extinction of the heath hen rather accelerated. Fires were usually a part of the environment, but to suppress the test fire rather than a succession perform with controlled fires, decreased habitat quality and a normally limited fire had with the accumulated undergrowth devastating consequences, as in 1916.

System

The taxonomic discussion has a number of research projects launched to find out more about the heath hen and its habitat. A first comparison of mtDNA haplotypes between Heath chicken and prairie chicken types ( Palkovacs et al., 2004) brought the unexpected result that all tested heath hens formed a group that is very different from the mainland birds, and the Grand Prairie chickens from Wisconsin were genetically very similar. A recent study (Johnson & Dunn, 2006), the same parameters confirmed the results, however, disagreed with the placement of the heath hen in relation to its kinship relationships and proposed instead a closer relationship with the little prairie chicken. Johnson and Dunn warned, however, against hineinzuinterpretieren too much into the results: whereas the small prairie chicken is a distinct species and genetically apparently equally different heath hen would therefore also deserve an independent status, through mtDNA haplotypes in small populations a genetic bottleneck and show probable a higher deviation than to judge solely on the taxonomic status here is (Johnson et al., 2003). Judging from the fact that, all heath hen specimens that were examined by Johnson and Dunn, originate from the island of Martha's Vineyard - where cattle could never exceed a few thousand birds because of the limited space and the genetic exchange is limited to the mainland was - so it is possible that the low genetic diversity and apparent uniqueness of the heath hen was an artifact of a small number of useful specimens from the same close-knit population.

Prairie chickens were randomly introduced on the east coast of the United States, after the heath hen became extinct on the mainland, but they could not keep up. Today, there is a considerable number of heath hen types in public collections, but many - all mainland specimens and those with insufficient information - can not be considered as clearly heath hens. For example, today only seven distinct heath hen eggs, which corresponds to a very small clutch ( Luther, 1996), in public collections known.

Literature and sources

• Cokinos, Christopher ( 2000): The Heath - hen Add: Hope is the Thing with Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds: 121-196. Tarcher. ISBN 1-58542-006-9
• Forbush, Edward Howe (1927 ): Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States volume II: 40th Massachusetts Department of Agriculture.
• Greenway, James C. (1967 ): Heath- hens and Prairie Chickens. In: Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World, 2nd edition: 188-199. Dover Publications, New York.
• Johnson, Jeff A.; Toepfer, JE & Dunn, Peter O. (2003): Contrasting patterns of mitochondrial and microsatellite population structure in fragmented populations of Greater prairie - chickens. Molecular Ecology 12 (12): 3335-47. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-294X.2003.02013.x PDF Full Text
• Johnson, Jeff A. & Dunn, Peter O. (2006): Low genetic variation in the Heath Hen prior to extinction and implications for the conservation of prairie -chicken populations. Conservation Genetics 7: 37-48. doi: 10.1007/s10592-005-7856-8 PDF Full Text
• Luther, Dieter (1996 ): prairie chicken. In: The extinct birds of the world, 4th edition ( The new library Brehm - 424): 51-54. [ in German ] Westarp Sciences, Magdeburg; Spectrum, Heidelberg. ISBN 3-89432-213-6
• Palkovacs, Eric P.; Oppenheimer, Adam J.; Gladyshev, Eugene; Toepfer, John E.; Amato, George; Chase, Thomas & Caccone, Adalgisa (2004): Genetic evaluation of a Proposed introduction: The case of the Greater prairie chicken and the extinct heath hen. Molecular Ecology 13: 1759-1769. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2004.02181.x (HTML abstract )
• Pearson, T. Gilbert ( 1917). Birds of America volume II: 26 The University Society. ( Reprinted in 1936, Garden City Publishing Co. )
• Schroeder, MA & Robb, LA (1993 ) Greater prairie -chicken. In: Poole, A.; Stettenheim, P. & Gill, F. ( editors ): The Birds of North America 36 The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; The American Ornithologists ' Union, Washington, DC.