Randy Krehbiel
Tulsa World Staff Writer
Editor's note: This story originally published without noting that President Joe Biden could veto the measures as part of this process. The story has been updated.
The lesser prairie chicken does a distinctive little dance every spring mating season.
So, too, does Oklahoma’s congressional delegation every time the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service tries to add the lesser prairie chicken to the protected species list.
While no one disputes that the lesser prairie chicken’s habitat has been significantly reduced over the years, the state’s congressional delegation maintains that farmers and ranchers working with state agencies more effectively manage what’s left of that habitat than federal regulators.
The bird has been off and on various lists for more than a decade. Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives followed the Senate in voting to rescind the Biden administration’s listing of the lesser prairie chicken and the northern long-eared bat, which also has an Oklahoma presence. President Joe Biden could and likely will veto the measures.
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Third District Congressman Frank Lucas, whose district includes the lesser prairie chicken’s remaining Oklahoma habitat, said such listings are “onerous” and needless” and “infringe on our daily lives.”
“Oklahomans are proud conservationists and great stewards of our land,” he said. “We recognize that sustainable, healthy land serves as the lifeblood of our rural communities.”
The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation operates several volunteer habitat preservation and mitigation programs on the western fringes of the state. Lucas’ office said lesser prairie chickens numbered about 35,000 in 2020, an increase of 75% from a few years before.
Overall, however, the species has been reduced by as much as 85%, according to biologists, and its range has shrunk from most of western Kansas and southeastern Colorado to near the Texas-Mexico border to intermittent parts of Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.
The northern long-eared bat ranges across the eastern half of the U.S. as far as the mountains of eastern Oklahoma and through much of Canada. It’s existence is threatened primarily by a fungus called white-nose syndrome, which U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin and others have argued would not be affected by an endangered species listing.
Mullin authored the resolution to delist the bat.
Oklahoma lawmakers have typically opposed additions to the endangered species lists because of the effect on such things as oil and gas exploration, construction and agriculture.
