A Native Prairie Bird Lost Federal Protection. People Are Still Trying to Save It on Private Land

By Anna Pope and Chloe Bennett-Steele

Mark Gardiner stood on the hill he calls "the high and lonesome” on his 48,000-acre ranch.

The lookout near the Oklahoma-Kansas state line opens up to a sea of sagebrush prairie, a hospitable home for deer, badgers, songbirds, dragonflies and other wildlife.

Those who stick around long enough on the Gardiner Angus Ranch may also spot a lesser prairie chicken.

“I love them. I like seeing them,” Gardiner said. “I mean, you're riding a horse across here and ever since I was a little kid, they fly off like a pheasant … it's pretty cool to see them.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates millions of lesser prairie chickens may have once scurried across a range of almost 100 million acres across the Great Plains. Today, scientists estimate there are only about 27,000 left in five states – Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. The bird has lost about 90% of its habitat due in part to land development, the spread of invasive trees on prairies, renewable energy projects and oil and gas activity.

Despite its plummeting numbers, the federal government has reversed protections for the species twice, most recently this summer after a court decision.

Now that work will fall to state and individual landowners.

Kurt Kuklinski with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation said changing rules has made efforts with landowners tougher, even if many want to participate.

“The bird was listed, then delisted, listed again. Now it's being challenged for a second delisting,” Kuklinski said. “That adds greater confusion and uncertainty to landowners. And it creates an atmosphere of maybe distrust is the best word.”

Federal protections are gone, again

After President Donald Trump took office for a second time, U.S. Fish and Wildlife reevaluated its Endangered Species Act rules. It quickly pointed to flaws in the Biden-era ruling in 2022 giving the lesser prairie chicken ESA protections.

Then on Aug. 12, a Texas federal judge ruled in favor of states that had challenged the ESA status of the species. In 2023, Oklahoma and Kansas joined a federal lawsuit – first started by the state of Texas – against the species listing.

t was the second time the bird lost protections. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service previously listed the lesser prairie chicken as threatened in 2014. It was delisted in 2016 following a court ruling, which the agency did not appeal.