This North American species was once abundant, but has become extremely rare and extirpated over much of its range due to habitat loss.

As with many other bird species, the adult females have shorter head feathers and also lack the male's yellow comb and orange neck patch.

Its diet consists primarily of seeds and fruit, but during the summer it also eats green plants and insects such as grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles.

[10] In states such as Iowa and Missouri that once had thriving prairie-chicken populations (estimated to be hundreds of thousands[11]), total numbers have dropped to about 500.

However, the Missouri Department of Conservation has started a program to import prairie-chickens from Kansas and Nebraska in the hopes that they will be able to repopulate the state and increase that number to 3,000.

Today, over 30,000 acres are managed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as greater prairie-chicken habitat.

Birdwatchers travel from around the world to visit Wisconsin in April for the Central Wisconsin Prairie Chicken Festival, started in 2006 by Golden Sands Resource Conservation & Development Council, Inc. Habitat loss is the greatest historical threat to prairie-chicken populations.

It was found in a radio telemetry study conducted by Kansas State University that "most prairie-chicken hens avoided nesting or rearing their broods within a quarter-mile of power lines and within a third-mile of improved roads."

(Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks) It was also found that the prairie-chickens avoided communication towers and rural farms.

[13] In Illinois, wildlife management included the "genetic rescue" of small and potentially inbred populations by introducing birds from other areas.

Their displays consist of inflating air sacs located on the side of their neck and snapping their tails.

[citation needed] Due to their now small populations and habitat fragmentation the greater prairie-chickens often undergo inbreeding causing observable inbreeding depression: with fewer offspring and a decreased survival rate within these limited offspring further aiding their population decrease.