# What This Bill Does: Removing Protection for the Lesser Prairie-Chicken

This bill would remove the lesser prairie-chicken from the list of threatened and endangered species protected by federal law. Right now, the Endangered Species Act gives this bird special legal protections because its population has declined significantly. If this bill passes, those protections would go away, and the bird would no longer have federal safeguards.

The lesser prairie-chicken is a ground-dwelling bird found in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. It lives in grasslands and prairies that have been shrinking for decades due to development, agriculture, and other land uses. The bird has lost so much habitat that its numbers have dropped dramatically—from millions a century ago to just a few thousand today. Federal protections currently restrict certain activities on land where these birds live to help prevent their extinction.

Removing this protection would mean landowners and businesses would face fewer restrictions on how they use their property in prairie-chicken habitat areas. Oil and gas drilling, wind farms, agricultural expansion, and other development projects would face fewer legal obstacles. While supporters of this bill argue it gives landowners more freedom and may encourage voluntary conservation efforts, wildlife experts worry it could accelerate the bird's decline toward extinction. Once a species goes extinct, it's gone forever, and many people believe that's a loss worth preventing.

A bill to remove the lesser prairie-chicken from the lists of threatened species and endangered species published pursuant to the Endangered Species Act of 1973, to amend that Act to exclude the lesser prairie-chicken from the authority of that Act, and for other purposes.

Marshall, Roger

<p>This bill removes the lesser prairie-chicken (<em>Tympanuchus pallidicinctus</em>), including each of its distinct population segments, from the threatened and endangered species lists that are published under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Further, the bill prohibits the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from designating such species as threatened or endangered, and thus, protecting such species under such act.</p>