The lesser prairie chicken,Tympanuchus pallidicinctus, is on the lips of politicians in Congress. That is because Congress members want to take the bird, considered vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN due to loss of habitat, off the endangered species list. Senator Roger Marshall(R) of Kansas showed his colleagues a video of its mating ritual, which was a hit. Now it seems everyone is talking about the bird in the halls. Marshall wants to de-list the bird because its legal status hampers energy development. Last year the Biden administration placed the New Mexico and Texas populations on the endangered list and the northern population in southern and western Kansas on the vulnerable list.
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These designations reignited a decades long debate over the fate of this member of the grouse family.
On Wednesday night, 49 senators voted to disapprove the agency designation. Marshall was able to sway Joe Manchin,
renegade Democrat from West Virginai, by arguing that the bird already has enough protection under state and local laws, and that its decline is due to the persistent drought in the western part of his state. Marshall claims he likes the bird, having grown up hunting them as a boy, but federal regulation makes it too difficult for economic interests including wind farm development.
President Biden said he would veto the bill if it passes in the Repugnant controlled House of Representatives. Intervention is scientifically required argues the administration since the bird has disappeared from 85-90% of its historic range. It serves as an indicator species for our grasslands' health continued the administration, and loosing it to extinction would undermine other speicies conservation efforts. The Department of Interior proposed creating a Lesser Prairie Chicken Preserve as a National Monument, but no congressional action was taken on the proposal. National Monuments have become a bête noir for small g conservatives who hold them up as examples of big government interference.
