Lesser prairie chicken

Tympanuchus pallidicinctus

For more than 15 years, lesser prairie chickens have been the most controversial birds in Kansas, and one of the most in the entire nation.

In the late 1990s, some wildlife groups began pressuring the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to put the birds on their Threatened and Endangered Species List because of sharp population declines. They were listed as threatened in 2014, and removed from the list this year when a judge ruled the Fish and Wildlife Service did not follow proper protocol in the listing.

Populations have rebounded from lows about three years ago across the bird’s range in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. Numbers remain a fraction of what they were 20 years ago. The end of a long-running drought is credited with producing better nesting cover. Loss of habitat to things like energy development and turning native prairie into farmlands still plague the birds. Trees encroaching on native prairie are also problematic.

Though the birds have been removed from federal listing several conservation groups are funding programs to secure and maintain habitat. There has been talk of trapping some lesser prairie chickens in western Kansas and relocating them to places like the Cimarron National Grasslands, where the drought about wiped the birds out.

This story was originally published September 16, 2016 at 4:09 PM with the headline "Lesser prairie chicken."