FORT COLLINS, COLORADO — The ground-dwelling bird known for its elaborate mating dances in the southern Great Plains will no longer gain federal protection after the Trump administration agreed to arguments from three states and the beef and petroleum industries that the species was improperly listed.
The disbarment of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday formalized a recent court ruling that acknowledged the federal agency now sides with opponents of federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken.
The ruling issued by a federal judge in Midland, Texas, has effectively ended Endangered Species Act protections For the bird last summer. Conservation has required the energy industry and ranchers to take steps to avoid disrupting the birds’ habitat and especially their mating areas, called leks.
The crow-sized birds numbered in the millions. Habitat loss due to energy development and agriculture has reduced its population to about 30,000 in parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Wildlife watchers enjoy the springtime dances, chirps, chirps and stomps of male birds to attract mates. Native American tribes mimic the flamboyant displays—also the most common behavior of the greater prairie chicken—in some of their dances.
The lesser prairie chicken has been federally protected twice in recent years. In 2015, a federal judge in the US District Court in Midland overturned the bird’s listing as an endangered species the previous year, siding with oil developers who argued that adequate protection already existed.
In 2022, President Joe Biden’s administration listed the lesser prairie chicken as endangered in the northern part of its range in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, and as endangered in a “distinct population segment” to the south in New Mexico and Texas.
The listing prompted a lawsuit by Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and groups including the Permian Basin Petroleum Association and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
After President Donald Trump took office last year, the Fish and Wildlife Service reevaluated the bird and agreed with states and groups that it lacked justification for classifying the lesser prairie chicken into two distinctly different groups.
Last August, another judge in U.S. District Court in Midland granted a request from the Fish and Wildlife Service to revoke its Biden-era listings for lesser prairie chickens.
“The Fish and Wildlife lien indicates a grave error in the basis of its ruling,” District Judge David Counts wrote in his Aug. 12 ruling, which Texas officials praised.
Texas oil and gas regulatory officials, including Texas Railroad Commission spokesman Bryce Dube and Texas Land Commissioner Don Buckingham, welcomed the delisting.
“This will ensure that U.S. oil and gas production in the Permian Basin remains strong and our economy remains stable,” Buckingham said in an emailed statement.
Environmentalists vowed to continue the fight in court.
“It is shameful that the Trump administration saw fit to sacrifice these magnificent birds for the profits of the oil and gas industry,” Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a statement. “The little prairie chicken may be lost forever without the protection of the Endangered Species Act.”