TOPEKA — The stocky, dancing bird that populates prairies across five states lost its federal protections — not because its habitat or population have dramatically improved, but because a Texas court sided with energy and livestock groups.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday delisted the lesser prairie chicken, stripping it of federal habitat protections afforded under a Biden-era ruling.

The bird, known for its flamboyant courtship dances and bulging neck pouches, roams what is widely considered prime ranching and drilling land in the grasslands and brush of southwestern Kansas, southeastern Colorado, eastern New Mexico, western Oklahoma and the panhandle and south plains of Texas. 

Lesser prairie chickens once numbered in the thousands, or even millions, according to historical estimates reviewed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Now there are around 30,000, and the historical range of its habitat has shrunk by 90%. 

“It’s shameful that the Trump administration sees fit to sacrifice these magnificent birds for oil and gas industry profit,” said Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.

The Center for Biological Diversity, formerly the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, first filed a petition with the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1995 to list the bird as threatened. It wasn’t until 2022 that the bird earned threatened and endangered status.

But that 2022 decision became the lesser prairie chicken’s Achilles’ heel.

A handful of Texas agencies challenged the decision in court in March 2023. Attorneys general in Kansas and Oklahoma and the petroleum and cattle industries later joined a lawsuit that revealed errors in the Fish and Wildlife Service’s classification process.

The service split the bird’s populations in two, dividing it into a southern range in New Mexico and the southwest Texas Panhandle, where it was listed as endangered, and a northern range in Kansas, Oklahoma and the northeast Texas Panhandle, where it was listed as threatened. At the time, the Fish and Wildlife Service said the southern range was at risk of extinction and the northern range could soon become endangered.

A federal judge in Texas said in a September decision that the service’s endangered and threatened findings had “no leg to stand on.”

U.S. District Judge David Counts overturned the service’s listings, inciting celebration from energy and cattle producers and Republican officials. An order issued Wednesday by the Fish and Wildlife Service sealed the deal, officially eliminating the endangered and threatened status from all populations of the lesser prairie chicken.

“Our successful litigation protected private property rights, supported our rural economy, and stopped federal overreach,” Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said in a Thursday statement.

He said federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken “would have crippled energy production and limited when and where ranchers could graze cattle on their own properties.”

U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, celebrated the decision, calling it a major win for farmers, ranchers and rural communities. He has opposed federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken for more than a decade. 

“For years, Kansas producers have worked to protect the bird’s habitat through voluntary, locally driven conservation efforts, but the listing’s burdensome federal regulations put severe strain on many Kansas industries,” Moran said in a Thursday press release.

Counts, the Texas judge, said in his September decision the 16 programs and efforts in the region would minimize any fallout from his decision.

More than 70% of the estimated lesser prairie chicken population inhabits Kansas. Oil and gas drilling, crop conversion, cattle grazing, infrastructure development, woodland incursion and growing drought conditions have led to habitat degradation and fragmentation, harming the lesser prairie chicken, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Lesser prairie chickens may be lost forever without Endangered Species Act protections. We’re fighting this decision to make sure they get them,” Rylander said.

The center appealed the Texas court’s decision to deny it from intervening in the case and Counts’ September order to delist the lesser prairie chicken to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

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