The Animals Of Kansas

Section 01

Where The Last Tallgrass Prairie Survives

Kansas holds something no other state does: the largest remaining expanse of tallgrass prairie on Earth. The Flint Hills, a north-south band of limestone-capped hills through the eastern third of the state, resisted the plough because chert and limestone lie just beneath the soil surface. Farmers could not break it, so they grazed it, and roughly four million acres of tallgrass survived as ranchland.

Put against Illinois at one hundredth of one percent and Iowa at one tenth of one percent, the Flint Hills are the difference between a habitat that exists and one that does not. Cattle grazing is imperfect substitution for bison, and annual spring burning is heavier than historic fire regimes, but the grass, the soil, and most of the birds and insects are still there.

The rest of Kansas is a gradient. Rainfall drops steadily from around 45 inches a year in the southeast to under 16 in the far west, and the vegetation tracks it: tallgrass in the east, mixed-grass in the centre, shortgrass in the west. Wildlife shifts with it, so a birder crossing Kansas moves from eastern woodland species to true Great Plains birds.

Kansas also sits under one of the great migration corridors in the world. Cheyenne Bottoms and Quivira National Wildlife Refuge in the centre of the state form a wetland complex that hosts a large share of North America's migrating shorebirds each spring, and both are designated Wetlands of International Importance in the middle of dry prairie.

Section 02

Kansas's Official State Animals

The bison is the more loaded symbol. Kansas was central to the slaughter: the herds were destroyed largely along the Kansas Pacific and Santa Fe rail lines in the 1870s, with hide hunters shipping millions of skins east from Dodge City and Wichita. Kansas named the animal it helped exterminate as its state animal in 1955, and the state now holds bison only in managed conservation herds. Related: why bison vanished and state parks where bison still roam.

Section 03

Habitats By Region, And Who Lives In Each

1. Flint Hills tallgrass prairie

Limestone-capped hills carrying big bluestem, Indiangrass, and switchgrass over four million acres. Greater prairie-chickens perform spring lek displays here in the strongest remaining populations in the tallgrass. Also Henslow's sparrow, upland sandpiper, dickcissel, eastern meadowlark, regal fritillary butterfly, and a bison herd at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. Prairie mole crickets call from the grass on spring evenings, a sound almost lost elsewhere.

2. Eastern woodlands and Osage Cuestas

Oak-hickory forest along river valleys with more rainfall and more eastern species. Bobcat, white-tailed deer, beaver, river otter (reintroduced), copperhead, timber rattlesnake, and forest birds. Southeast Kansas holds a small area where cottonmouth and alligator snapping turtle reach the state.

3. Central wetlands: Cheyenne Bottoms and Quivira

A vast natural sink and a salt marsh complex sitting in the middle of the plains, together forming one of the most important shorebird stopovers in the western hemisphere. Estimates suggest a large majority of several North American shorebird species pass through in spring. Whooping cranes stop here on migration, along with sandhill cranes, white pelicans, avocets, black-necked stilts, and enormous numbers of waterfowl.

4. Mixed-grass and Smoky Hills

The transition belt with shorter grass, chalk bluffs, and canyons. Species include pronghorn at the western edge, black-tailed prairie dog colonies, burrowing owl, ferruginous hawk, and swift fox.

5. High Plains and shortgrass, western Kansas

Flat, dry, and heavily irrigated from the Ogallala Aquifer. Lesser prairie-chicken occupies the sand sagebrush and shortgrass here, and its range has contracted severely. Also mountain plover, long-billed curlew, prairie rattlesnake, ornate box turtle, and swift fox. The Cimarron National Grassland in the southwest corner is the state's largest tract of public shortgrass.

Section 04

Mammals Of Kansas

Kansas has around 80 mammal species, with a distinctive mix of eastern and western plains animals meeting in the middle of the state.

• American bison: the state animal, present only in managed herds. The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Maxwell Wildlife Refuge, and Konza Prairie hold the main ones.
• Elk: extirpated and now present in a fenced herd at Maxwell plus a free-ranging population at Fort Riley. Related: state parks where elk gather in fall.
• Pronghorn: a few thousand in the west, restored by translocation after near-extirpation.
• White-tailed and mule deer: whitetails statewide and increasing, mule deer in the west and declining as whitetails expand.
• Black-tailed prairie dog: colonies across the west, reduced to a small fraction of their historic extent by poisoning and conversion. They are a keystone species: burrowing owls, swift fox, badgers, and ferruginous hawks all depend on colonies.
• Black-footed ferret: one of North America's most endangered mammals, entirely dependent on prairie dogs, reintroduced in Logan County in 2007 after being absent from Kansas for decades.
• Swift fox: a small, fast prairie fox of the shortgrass, at roughly the eastern limit of its range.
• Bobcat, coyote, red and gray fox, badger, striped and spotted skunk, raccoon, opossum, mink, long-tailed weasel, river otter: all present. The eastern spotted skunk has declined sharply.
• Black-tailed and white-tailed jackrabbits, eastern cottontail, thirteen-lined ground squirrel, plains pocket gopher, kangaroo rat in sandy soils: the small-mammal base.
• Bats: 16 species, including gray bat and northern long-eared bat, both federally listed.

Absent: gray wolf, grizzly, and cougar as breeding populations, all extirpated. Cougars have been confirmed as dispersers from Colorado and the Black Hills repeatedly since 2007.

Section 05

Birds Of Kansas

More than 470 species have been recorded, a high total explained by the state's position in the Central Flyway and the presence of major wetlands in an otherwise dry region.

• Prairie grouse: greater prairie-chicken in the Flint Hills and lesser prairie-chicken in the southwest sand sagebrush. Both perform dawn lek displays in spring, males inflating orange throat sacs and producing a low booming call. Lesser prairie-chicken range has contracted severely and its federal listing status has been repeatedly litigated.
• Shorebirds: Cheyenne Bottoms and Quivira are the story. Long-billed dowitcher, Baird's sandpiper, stilt sandpiper, Wilson's phalarope, American avocet, and Hudsonian godwit pass through in vast numbers each spring. Both sites are internationally designated.
• Cranes: sandhill cranes stage in large numbers, and whooping cranes, of which only a few hundred exist in the wild, stop in Kansas on migration between Texas and Canada.
• Raptors: bald eagle now nesting after decades of absence, plus ferruginous hawk, Swainson's hawk, prairie falcon, Mississippi kite common in towns, and burrowing owl in prairie dog colonies.
• Grassland songbirds: western meadowlark (the state bird) and eastern meadowlark, which overlap and sing entirely different songs, plus Henslow's, grasshopper, Cassin's and lark sparrows, dickcissel, and bobolink.

The two meadowlarks make Kansas a useful place to understand species limits. Eastern and western meadowlarks look nearly identical, overlap across the middle of the state, and can be told apart reliably only by voice: the eastern gives a clear descending whistle, the western a bubbling, flutelike warble. They rarely interbreed successfully, and where their ranges meet each tends to hold slightly different grassland, the eastern in taller and moister cover and the western in shorter and drier. Kansas named the western bird its state bird in 1937, which fits a state whose identity leans west even though half of it is ecologically eastern.

Section 06

Reptiles, Amphibians, And Fish

Kansas has around 60 reptile and 30 amphibian species. The east-west moisture gradient shapes the whole list.

Snakes: about 40 species, five venomous: prairie rattlesnake in the west, timber rattlesnake in the east, western massasauga, copperhead in the east, and cottonmouth in a small southeastern area. Kansas also has bullsnake, western hognose, glossy snake, and the speckled kingsnake.

Turtles and lizards: ornate box turtle (the state reptile), plus common snapping turtle, alligator snapping turtle in the southeast, painted and map turtles, yellow mud turtle, and softshells. Lizards include collared lizard, lesser earless lizard, six-lined racerunner, and Texas horned lizard.

Amphibians: barred tiger salamander (the state amphibian), which in some populations stays aquatic and gilled into adulthood, plus plains spadefoot, Great Plains toad, plains leopard frog, crawfish frog, and Blanchard's cricket frog.

Fish: roughly 140 species. The Topeka shiner, a small minnow of clear prairie streams, is federally endangered and Kansas holds important populations. Arkansas darter, Arkansas River shiner, and several other small stream fish are imperiled by dewatering as the Ogallala Aquifer is drawn down and prairie streams that once ran year-round go dry.

Section 07

Dangerous Animals In Kansas

• White-tailed deer: the most dangerous animal in the state, causing thousands of vehicle collisions annually.
• Venomous snakes: five species. Copperheads cause most bites in the east, prairie rattlesnakes in the west. Bites are uncommon and rarely fatal.
• Brown recluse spider: common in Kansas homes and outbuildings, along with black widows.
• Ticks: Kansas reports substantial Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichiosis, and tularemia. Lone star ticks also cause alpha-gal syndrome.
• Bison: relevant where herds are accessible. Bison injure more people in US parks than bears do, and they are fast and unpredictable. Related: where bison injure the most visitors.
• Africanized honeybees: present in southern Kansas, and stinging insects cause the most animal-related deaths.
• Livestock and severe weather: both cause far more harm in Kansas than any wild animal.

Section 08

Endangered And Protected Species

The pressures in Kansas are distinctive. Groundwater depletion is central: the Ogallala Aquifer has dropped so far in parts of the west that streams which once flowed year-round now run dry, taking their fish with them. Prairie dog control removes the keystone that ferrets, burrowing owls, and swift foxes depend on. Woody encroachment, especially eastern redcedar spreading into unburned grassland, converts prairie to scrub and displaces grassland birds. And wind energy and oil development fragment lesser prairie-chicken range.

Section 09

Where To See Wildlife In Kansas

• Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Strong City: bison on the largest protected tallgrass tract, plus prairie birds.
• Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area: the state's premier shorebird site, spectacular in late April and May.
• Quivira National Wildlife Refuge: salt marsh, whooping crane stopovers, and huge waterfowl numbers.
• Konza Prairie Biological Station: long-term prairie research site with public trails and a bison herd.
• Cimarron National Grassland: shortgrass species, lesser prairie-chicken leks, and swift fox.
• Maxwell Wildlife Refuge: bison and elk viewable from a tram.
• Flint Hills lek sites: greater prairie-chicken booming grounds, viewed from blinds at dawn in April.