SumRested Outline for the Proposed Prairie Chicken Investigation. 
There are tw maih. phitses of the problem: 
1. The cycle study. This involves several other 
species, (ruffed grouse, sharp-tailed grouse, 
snowshoe hares, etc.), and should be pursued as 
a unit. 
2. The Prairie chicken management technique. This is 
a problem primarily of land use, and involves certain 
other species and certain other operations in progress 
simultaneously on the available lands.(Forestry, 
drainage, agriculture; deer, bear, beaver, ducks, etc.). 
The development of adequate management technique 
will require the filling-in of certain blank spaces 
in our life history knowledge of prairie chickens, 
some life history stidy of other species, and much 
experimentation in cultural practices. 
My suggestions for conducting these twm main phases of the 
work follow. 
The Cycle Study. 
It is of the utmost nportance to follow accurately the 
course of the down trend, Learning not only the exact time of 
decimation for the sever. localities of the state, but so far 
as may be also the mechanism and behavior of the populations as 
decrease continues to its lowest level. To do this job adequately 
for Wisconsin is the first step in the whole investigation. The 
main methods of charting the decline shape up as follows. 
1. An organization of gnme observers, reporting 
frequently for several localities within each 
county. The state already has a game observer 
system with reports available from many reliable 
sources, Including the conservation wardens. If 
access to these reports can be had, they will form 
a good basis for preliminary mrk. The observer 
system may be amplified as requirements demand, 
but it Aould be well, insofar as possible, to 
tie in with the existing system to the end that 
better technical data on abundance may become 
permanently available to the Wisconsin Conservation 
Commission. Since Bill Grimmer is already swamped