Wisconsin · UplandGreater prairie-chicken

Wisconsin DNR's own management page names Buena Vista, Leola and Paul J. Olson Wildlife Areas as the remaining strongholds for the state's current greater prairie-chicken populations, and an independent species account citing the state's own management plan sharpens this further. The population sits in two paired grassland complexes plus one declining remnant: over 90% of chickens are found on managed wildlife areas (Buena Vista/Leola Grasslands, Mead/Paul J. Olson Grasslands Wildlife Areas), with small numbers of chickens also persisting in western Marathon and eastern Clark Counties, where private land use still supports the birds. All of this sits inside DNR's Central Wisconsin Grassland Conservation Area (CWGCA), which the department describes as spanning southeastern Taylor County, through parts of Clark and Marathon counties, between Stevens Point and Wisconsin Rapids and south to northeastern Adams County, and hosting the state's largest populations of the greater prairie chicken. Buena Vista Wildlife Area (Portage County, 12,700 acres) is the single largest concentration, the site studied by Frances and Frederick Hamerstrom from the 1950s-70s and still the subject of an annual booming-ground survey. Independent research also documents a lack of dispersal between the sub-populations, reducing genetic diversity across the state's overall population. No hunting season exists for the species in Wisconsin.