Conservation

In the year of our Lord 1620, the northeast coast of North America was a true pristine wilderness, with a diversity and biomass that we scarcely can comprehend today. Vast forests covered the land, separated by intentional burns started by Native American tribes. Rats, housecats, starlings, feral pigeons, English sparrows and other parasites were unimagined. Large predators including mountain lions, bears, wolves and wolverines roamed freely. In the spring huge migrations of salmon, shad, smelt and trout poured into the rivers. The Labrador duck populated bays and inlets of the seacoast, and vast flights of passenger pigeons blotted out the sun. That year, when the Europeans began their first extensive forays into New England’s woods and waters, another native, today all but forgotten by history, would feel the first tug of extinction’s deadly grip. That native, which should be lamented in song and story each fall, is sadly gone forever, and not a tear has been shed.
    Tympanuchus cupido cupido.
    Heathcock . . . pheysant . . . Eastern pinnated grouse . . . heath hen.
    When the first New England settlers explored the scrub plains of the Eastern Seaboard, they encountered a gallinaceous bird larger than the grouse of England that weighed two to three pounds and measured approximately 17 inches long. The heath hen (pronounced “heathen”) was slightly smaller than the present-day greater prairie chicken of the Plains States. Careful taxonomy of specimens from Martha’s Vineyard show that the heath hen had shorter tarsi than its Western cousins and that the neck tufts contained four to five pinnae (the rigid neck feathers erected during courtship), compared to the seven to 10 seen on the prairie chicken. These pinnae were narrower and more acutely pointed than the Western birds’. Overall, the heath hen’s plumage was redder above and whiter below than the prairie chicken’s. “The flesh of the Heathcock is red,” said William Wood, writing in 1635 in his New England Prospect, as compared to the “white” flesh of the ruffed grouse. They were abundant enough, according to Wood, that “a husband can kill halfe dozen in the morning.”
    Like its Western cousins, the heath hen existed on a varied diet depending upon season and circumstance. The bird fed heavily on bayberries, barberries, wild strawberries and the like. Scrub acorns were a mainstay in coastal areas, as were buds of scrub pine and the fruit of Mitchella repens, or partridgeberry—known to early settlers as the “heath hen plum.” In warmer months much of their food came in the form of insects, particularly grasshoppers. The birds also thrived on cultivated crops such as millet, buckwheat, corn and sunflowers.
    Courtship and breeding were reported to be dramatic displays beginning in March and peaking in April or May. During this time a male would court a female with repeated short runs and vigorous stamping of the feet, followed by inflation of an orange air sac and the booming call whoo-doo-dooh, whoo-oodul-doo-o-o-o-o. The display would end with the male leaping three to four feet into the air, making a piercing call and landing facing the opposite direction. Females nested on the ground, laying clutches of six to 12 olive-buff, unspotted eggs, which hatched in June.
    When Europeans began settlement in earnest in the mid-1600s, the heath hen was present in large numbers from coastal Maine to Virginia and perhaps the Carolinas. The birds shunned deep forest and thrived in the burned-over areas created by Native Americans or wildfires. They were especially prominent in the coastal plains of Massachusetts, New York,   Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It has been speculated that on the first Thanksgiving the Pilgrims feasted not on turkey but on heath hen. The birds were at one time a regular sight on Boston Common and, because they were relatively tame and congregated in the open, they could be shot or even netted in large and reliable numbers. In 1637 Thomas Morton claimed the birds were so common that seldom was a shot wasted upon them. So abundant were they in the open country around Boston that, according to Governor John Winthrop, who died in 1649, laborers negotiated with their employers so as not to be fed heath hen “oftener than a few times a week.”
    The early years of colonization actually seem to have helped heath hen populations, as farming and westward expansion cleared many of the mature forests and opened up more suitable habitat for the birds. Yet as we have been taught over and over again—but never seem to learn—a species, any species, cannot be relentlessly hammered by man and survive. This is true whether it be the Carolina parakeet, Steller’s sea cow, bluefin tuna or lovely heath hen.
    By the 1790s, having withstood almost two centuries of wanton and merciless slaughter, systematic habitat destruction and the introduction of feral cats and blackhead disease from domestic fowl, heath hen numbers began to seriously decline. In 1791 a bill was introduced in the New York legislature “for the preservation of the heath-hen and other game.” This futile attempt was the first such conservation bill put forth in America for preservation of a species. Massachusetts followed with its own failed bill in 1831, and by 1840 the bird had entirely disappeared from both mainland Massachusetts and Connecticut. Soon after, the last remnant birds vanished from strongholds in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, New Jersey’s Pine Barrens and Long Island. By 1870 the only remaining population was on Martha’s Vineyard, off of the Massachusetts coast. Although it is unclear whether the heath hen was native to that island or introduced there in the 19th Century, much of what we now know about the bird’s habits is based upon observations by naturalists who studied there and by the convulsive, futile attempts to preserve the species over 50-odd years.
    In 1890 a census by William Brewster on Martha’s Vineyard estimated that there were 200 birds, and by 1896 the number had fallen to less than 100. With the recognition that the heath hen was in the throes of extinction, a concerted effort was made on the island to save the species. In 1908 50 birds remained. That year 600 acres were preserved by private citizens and an additional 1,000 acres were leased by the Commonwealth and systematically improved as habitat for the birds. This preserve was judiciously guarded by game wardens and concerned citizens—sportsmen and ornithologists alike. The Massachusetts department of conservation expended $70,000, and private groups raised much more. The birds responded, and by 1915 there were an estimated 2,000 occupying almost the entire island. That year it was said to have been possible to flush flocks of up to 300 birds without great effort.
    Success was short lived, however, as on May 12, 1916, a great fire broke out in the center of the island and swept over much of the interior, completely burning more than 20 square miles of breeding cover at the height of the nesting season. This was followed by a harsh winter in 1916-’17 and then a plague of goshawks that descended upon the island and decimated the survivors. The next year found only 150 surviving birds. Successive inbreeding over the next few years led to a weakened population, and the final curse came in 1920 in the form of blackhead disease, introduced by domestic turkeys, which killed most of the remnant population. In 1927 the spring census showed 13 birds, of which only two were females. By the fall of 1928 there were two birds left, and after December 8 that year only one. That last valiant straggler was photographed in April 1929 and again in the spring of 1930. During the fall of 1931 it disappeared into the scrub oak, never to be seen again. This is the only time in history that a species has been observed, studied and photographed down to the last known individual. It is a woeful example of the systematic destruction of habitat and an ecosystem at the hands of man.
    Yet perhaps the story does not end here. In 2004 Eric Palkovacs, then at Yale, examined DNA from all prairie chicken populations and compared them to DNA from preserved specimens of heath hens from Martha’s Vineyard. The results showed a genetically distinct group of birds that was surprisingly close to the current Wisconsin subpopulation—itself in trouble as a result of genetic isolation. Palkovacs’ work was part of an initiative by the Massachusetts Nature Conservancy to restore the Vineyard’s grassy habitat.
    A long conversation with Palkovacs, now at the University of Maine, raised some profound and difficult questions. Should time and money be spent on a reintroduction plan for these birds? “Not a good use of dollars from a systems approach,” Palkovacs said, “but still interesting.” Is Martha’s Vineyard the place to make a repopulation attempt? “No,” Palkovacs said. “The birds that eventually went extinct there were genetically isolated and biologically vulnerable, just as any reintroduced population would be. Better to do it on the mainland.” Finally, and most important, would birds introduced from the West actually be heath hens? “No,” Palkovacs said, “you’ll never have the heath hen back.” However, the specimens from Martha’s Vineyard likely did not represent the true DNA makeup of the original mainland population. Those birds had been subjected to genetic isolation and a “population bottleneck” from human disturbance for decades or even centuries, which eventually led to high levels of infertility in the remaining birds.
    But wait. All of the subpopulations of prairie chickens arose—relatively recently in evolutionary terms—from a common ancestor. All living things are altered by the forces in their environment, and this would be true for reintroduced birds. The Eastern Seaboard would exert different stressors. Food, habitat, weather and predators would select for different traits. Given enough time and space, this would result in a distinct population that truly be would the heath hen, or at least a heath hen.
    Could a successful repopulation be undertaken? “Unknown” said Tom Chase of the Martha’s Vineyard branch of the Massachusetts Nature Conservancy. Chase was in charge of the plan for grassland restoration and originally floated the idea for heath hen reintroduction. He, like Palkovacs, has a palpable excitement when discussing the idea of reintroduction. Chase, however, is a bit less circumspect around the idea of the prairie chicken becoming the heath hen given enough time and space.
    An effort like this probably would require collaboration by such groups as the Nature Conservancy (www.nature.org), the North American Grouse Partnership (www.grousepartners.org) and at least four or five state fish and wildlife agencies in New England and the Western states. A cadre of biologists along with foresters and technicians would have to be engaged. Feasibility studies and test sites would need to be evaluated. Thousands of suitable acres would need to be identified. The process would take years, even decades, and cost many thousands of dollars.
    One thing is certain, however: Without action, what is lost can never be regained. We are the stewards of the land, sea and sky. Perhaps there is a chance to undo what has been destroyed.
    All those in favor please stand and be counted . . . .

Author’s Note: Presently there are no plans for a heath hen reintroduction attempt. There are, however, a number of organizations working for wildlife and habitat conservation that could use help. The Minnesota Prairie Chicken Society (www.prairiechicken.org) recently transplanted birds to Wisconsin to reestablish genetic diversity in that state’s prairie chicken population. The Nature Conservancy works for habitat conservation and enhancement around the globe and recently announced a major plan to restore Martha’s Vineyard Sandplains Habitat.