Remember the talk about the lesser prairie chicken being put on the threatened or endangered list and how it really irritated Kansas ranchers? Well, the lesser prairie chicken will not be listed as a threatened or endangered species. A U. S. district Court Judge in the western district of Texas ruled that a Biden-era U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to list the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened or endangered species was unlawful.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach says the ruling is a huge win for Kansas ranchers and energy producers. He says the listing of the species as threatened or endangered would have crippled oil and wind energy production and would have limited where and when Kansas ranchers could graze cattle on their own property. He added it was based on manipulated numbers dividing the species into subgroups to create the impression the species was threatened, when in fact, drought had simply caused populations in some areas to drop, while in other areas the numbers were stable.
