Salina ? An effort is under way to help replenish the prairie chicken population in Missouri from the stocks of prairie chickens in neighboring Kansas.

Just a few years ago, Missouri prairie chickens numbered only in the hundreds because they had been pushed out of their native habitat to make way for non-native grasses, such as fescue, where they cannot live.

Kansas, however, is too dry for fescue, and so has a thriving population.

Three years ago, the Missouri Conservation Department started importing the chickens from Kansas, with permission, and putting them into land it’s rebuilding as prairie.

Prairie chickens need such a diverse habitat that they’re a good indicator of prairie health. If the population carries on at the Wah’Kon-Tah Prairie in El Dorado Springs, Mo., where they will be released, the department will know its effort to replenish native prairie grass is going well.

The group consisted of telemeter Tom Thompson, who tracked the radio signals; wildlife biologists Eric Merritt and Ryan Jones; resource assistant Randy Jones; Max Alleger, who’s in charge of the department’s grassland bird efforts; and forester Gary Gognat.

The group has been in Salina, where they’ll stay until they collect 60 hens and chicks. The hens were outfitted this spring with radio signal collars that led the conservation crews to them during the past week’s efforts.

They have found an unusually small number of chicks this year, and they’re not sure why. One department worker speculated Kansas’ heavy rains earlier this year were to blame.