Lesser Prairie Chicken Coonservation Issues

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School

University of Florida *

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2040

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History

Date

Oct 30, 2023

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docx

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Uploaded by JusticeWaterBuffaloPerson2804

Lesser Prairie Chicken Conservation Issues This essay deals with the situation where a declining species (the lesser prairie chicken) may actually go unprotected under the Endangered Species Act even if its protection is highly warranted. This can happen because of conflicts with very same consumptive interests that led to the species decline in the first place. These interests include agriculture and the petroleum industry, and, as we shall soon see, their friends in Congress The lesser prairie chicken is a grouse-like bird that currently occurs in two disjunct populations: the smaller of the two extends from west Texas into eastern New Mexico; the other extends from the eastern edge of the Texas panhandle into, Oklahoma, north into southwestern Kansas, and west into southeastern Colorado. Years ago I worked in the Nongame section of the Colorado Division of Wildlife and I spent a good deal of time working in Baca County (the most southeastern county in the state and the one with most, if not all, the lesser prairie chickens). I can tell you that even by the late 1970s Lesser Prairie Chickens were found only in a few places in Baca County. The problem they faced and continue to face is one of habitat degradation and loss. Just as their name says, they live in prairie and much of the prairie on the southern plains has been plowed up for farming. This started in the last part of the 19th century following the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its various derivatives. After the act was passed, homesteaders flooded into the southern plains. And at one time at the start of the past century, there may have been more than 5000 homesteads in Baca County alone. Of course most of these homesteads ultimately failed due to drought and the dust bowl. It turns out that most of the land was not suitable for farming anyway and the homesteaders often didn't know much about farming. During the dust bowl even the homesteads on potentially better farmland,

failed. The people went broke, and they left. Abandoned homesteads on better farm land were sucked up by larger farms and are still being farmed. Many of those on land that probably should never have been farmed were ultimately purchased by the government and used to develop the Comanche National Grassland. This involved among other things, replanting vast areas of abandoned farmland to 'tame prairie' of mostly side-oats grama grass ( Bouteloua curtipendula ), a fast growing mid-grass that helped stabilize bare ground left on abandoned homesteads and make grazing lands. So two agricultural activities in grasslands are farming (think habitat loss) and grazing (think possible habitat degradation - we will come back to this shortly). Not surprisingly, lesser prairie chickens do not nest in farmed land, and a study done in Texas showed that nesting success in grazed lands was higher when the vegetation around the nests was taller. Now, back to grazing. It turns out that when it comes to evaluating the effects of grazing, the picture is not quite as clear. Heavy grazing of course, reduces this vegetation, leading to habitat degradation, so in over-grazed range lands (meaning grasslands used for grazing cattle) lesser prairie chickens decline. On the other hand, if grazing is completely prohibited, then woody plants invade the grassland (woodies shade-out prairie plants if left unchecked), which also degrades the habitat for prairie chickens. So some grazing is needed -- but too much, or too little, can both be bad. That makes sense because before there were cattle munching on the prairie there were herds of buffalo. So lesser prairie chickens and many other species, evolved under a grazing regime of sorts. In eastern New Mexico and west Texas in addition to farming and grazing there are also large areas of disturbed habitat surrounding oils rigs. The little town of Milnesand, New Mexico began hosting the High Plains Lesser Prairie Chicken Festival in 2002. Such local festivals are often a boon for conservation as they raise awareness of conservation issues and bring money into

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