The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) pulled Endangered Species Act protections for the lesser prairie chicken following a 2025 court ruling that had overturned a ‘threatened and endangered’ designation.
The Feb. 25 final rule eliminates Biden-era requirements for the oil, gas, and cattle industries to safeguard the birds’ habitat and mating areas, which lie in major oil- and gas-producing states of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Colorado.
Last year, a federal judge in Texas, citing “serious, foundational defects” in the FWS’s listing of the bird, ordered the agency to revoke protections. The final rule officially does so.
Lesser prairie chicken protection status
The lesser prairie chicken has moved in and out of protected status twice in the past 12 years. In 2015, a federal judge in Texas reversed the birds’ 2014 listing as threatened, agreeing with oil and gas industry arguments that adequate protections were already in place.
The Biden administration’s FWS listed the bird again in 2022, finding it threatened 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 re-listing spurred a lawsuit by the Permian Basin Petroleum Association and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, among others.
“Lesser prairie chickens may be lost forever without Endangered Species Act protections,” said Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, in a statement. The group vowed to appeal.
About the Author
Cathy Landry
Washington Correspondent
Cathy Landry has worked over 20 years as a journalist, including 17 years as an energy reporter with Platts News Service (now S&P Global) in Washington and London.
She has served as a wire-service reporter, general news and sports reporter for local newspapers and a feature writer for association and company publications.
Cathy has deep public policy experience, having worked 15 years in Washington energy circles.
She earned a master’s degree in government from The Johns Hopkins University and studied newspaper journalism and psychology at Syracuse University.