Lesser prairie chicken gets screwed again — does US Fish and Wildlife tank ESA listings?

An indicator species of the high plains, the lesser prairie chicken, a type of grouse, can't get any environmental protection love and has been ill-treated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (It got two years of "threatened" listing, then that was removed due to court ruling of being improperly instituted. It's been talked about for an "endangered" listing for 25 years; the oil people hate it like they hate the dunes sagebrush lizard.) 

Fast forward six years, to a re-listing. And, another loss.

Last week, the lesser prairie chicken's endangered listing got nixed by a judge. (When I saw the judge was from the Western District of Texas, before I saw the actual name, I thought it was Matthew Kacsmaryk, but I guess ESA attacks aren't high-enough profile for him.)   

Contra the dunes sagebrush lizard, going beyond the "in the field" level, this time, FWS had stood up to the oil and gas industry, which is why they brought the lawsuit.

But, it's another loss, and a loss that does, per the header, make things look that way, like FWS tanks.

Details from the ruling:

"Fish and wildlife's concession points to serious error at the very foundation of its rule," the court said in its Aug. 12, 2025, ruling. 

"Mere remand would not cure this error. Fish and wildlife therefore commits no handwaving when it also concedes that this failure causes the final listing rule to be 'unlawful' and therefore 'not in accordance to law.'" 

USFWS told the court that the agency's failure to "support the identification of the lesser prairie chicken as distinct population segments taints the findings" by the Biden administration that those populations were listable as endangered. 

USFWS said it plans to complete a new finding on the lesser prairie chicken by Nov. 30, 2026, in response to a 2016 listing petition by environmental groups that gave rise to the Biden administration rule.

So, per the "in the field"? I asked online friend and Race to Extinction author Lyle Lewis if USFWS ever "tanks" these filings.

His response?

Maybe? Ha! It’s very difficult to be in USFWS in Washington without being a political animal.

— Lyle Lewis (@Race2Extinct) August 15, 2025

Well, there you go. 

The Texas Monthly provides more information about how US Fish and Wildlife Service is a quisling pseudoenvironmental organization, with a detailed blow-by-blow of its total cave-in on what had been a planned massive expansion of Muleshoe NWR out in the Panhandle. And part of that is about the lesser prairie chicken.