Editor’s note: The Lesser Prairie Chicken was removed from the engendered species list by Federal court order earlier this month. Opponents of “red tape regulations” have claimed victory, while environmental advocates see it as one more blow to the cause of preserving natural ecology. Experts are hesitant to declare the species extinct from Texas, but the species is so fragile that one hot summer might have the last word on the matter.
Our American Chicken
The Lesser Prairie Chicken (LPC) stands just a little over a foot tall, strutting the plains with grey and black feathers.
The male of the species, adorned with two prominent feathers called pinnae sticking up on the side of it’s neck, reaching out like little antennas, and their distinctive red orange throat that puffs up and coos during the Lek, the traditional mating dance.
The Lek, is where the boys get together and do a little dance: a quick pitter-patter; followed by struts, and calls that resemble Mourning Doves.
The LPC stands at an interesting crossroads. It’s not as cool as the Greater Prairie Chicken, and lacks the prestige and exclusivity of Attwater’s Prairie Chicken.
All three share the same plumage, the same sexual dimorphism (the males of the species are flashier than the females), the same distinctive calls and Lekking behavior.
The LPC is a galliform, a ground dwelling bird. We’re already familiar with a few of its close cousins: the pheasant, the Indian peafowl, and lest we forget “Gallus Gallus” the jungle fighting bird that were later domesticated into “Gallus Domesticus”, the common broiler chicken.
New World quail, grouse, pheasants, and prairie chickens of all kinds of all kinds have proven to be evolutionary winner all over the world.
They’re hardy, clever enough to get by, and they can run away from predators effectively.
They’re also omnivorous, although plants make up the majority of their diet.
An important characteristic of the LPC is its need to identify high spots where they can build nests, relying on these small mounds in the earth to avoid the springtime flooding that might otherwise drown their nests.
Todd Montandon currently works in Gaines County as a non-game species field biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife, and said he was part of the conservation effort for the LPC, which is classified by TPWD as an Upland Game Bird for technical reasons, even though it’s considered endangered.
“Like quail, they’re very much a boom-or-bust species. You have to have the right conditions. The timing of springtime rains has to be right,” Montandon said, “and the life expectancy of these birds is, at most, 2-3 years — usually only one year.”
He said this is common for upland birds like the LPC; in drought and heat, the birds need thermal cover, or they will die quickly, especially the chicks.
“Brush encroachment over the years has really lead to the decline of these populations,” Montandon explained, “before you even know it, a whole pasture is covered in brush.”
Invasive species like mesquite, cedars and red-berry juniper move in fast, and traditionally were contained through wildfires.
These large uncontrolled fires were used to clear out the prairies and allow short grasses to regrow. Over the years, as the fires posed risks to human life and development, the practice have been discontinued.
Montandon said once tall grasses, brush, and trees move in, the LPC moves out.
And it doesn’t take much to upset their ecology.
If the land is leveled off for agriculture, or some development — or anything — it removes the natural LPC habitat, and economic activities in the American West have been doing exactly for more than 150 years now.
There have been major interruptions in the life cycle of the short-grass prairie, like the wildfires that led to richer soils, and the forced extinction of the American Bison, whose great herds trampled tall growths that would’ve prevented the Lesser Prairie Chickens from thriving
Attracting Attention
The Greater Prairie Chicken is, of course, a little bit larger than its Lesser cousin, and they once roamed all the way up into Canada; GPCs exist in great enough populations to allow for hunting in some states.
Meanwhile, Attwater’s Prairie Chicken was dramatically endangered by the 1930s, and received much attention when reports estimated fewer than 9,000 APCs after much of South Texas was developed for rice production, along with an early bid to build a soap-making industry with Chinese tallow trees.
While the males of the various prairie chicken species have elaborated physical traits, like inflatable throat patches, to help them attract attention, advocates for these birds rely on festivals and symposiums.
The Lesser Prairie Chicken Festival has garnered limited media attention, with only a few dozen articles here and there.
It ran for a while in Texas and Oklahoma, but as the populations dwindled in those states, the festivities moved to Kansas.
Compare this to the magnificent coverage received by Attwater’s Prairie Chicken: prestige, honor, Texas Monthly and Houston Chronicle features.
But it seems, in America, animals only ever get the red-carpet treatment after they’ve been driven to near extinction.
The APC can only be found in two places: Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado County, and — it’s thought — a few still roam in Goliad County.
It’s estimated that after spring floods in 2016 wiped out an entire generation of eggs, and Hurricane Harvey following shortly in 2018, fewer than 100 remain. In the wild, the most generous of population estimates suggest there are only a few dozen.
These days the LPC is still believed to inhabit two locations: Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge and the Buffalo Lake Refuge, both in the panhandle of Texas.
One of the population strongholds of the LPC was in Hemphill County, near Canadian.
Though population numbers haven’t had any significant drops in Texas recently, Montandon says that when he was working on the effort 20 years ago, there weren’t that many to begin with.
“You might see 50-60 birds during the Lek counts, when the males were coming out and onto the booming grounds.”
In the northeast panhandle, the issue is with populations being able to move to and from different habitats. Oil and gas production has split up flocks, and the two distinct populations cannot connect anymore.
Theres some parts of these where birds haven’t been seen in many years.
“In my area, which was more southwest,” he added, “you’d see 5-to-10 males booming, some areas as many as 20. Eventually 5-to-6 became be a lot of males to see.”
The Lek counts are done at a single point in time, which means it might not reflect the populations true numbers.
But at this point, they’re just about as rare as hen’s teeth.
To come across one would be considered a birdwatching achievement.
Montandon says “You pretty much have to know where they are to find them.”
Our Prairie Tradition
It’s become a familiar ballad: The American Bison, The Passenger Pigeon, and The Dodo Bird.
All victims of history; all doomed to the same fate. Hunted or run out of their habitats into extinction, only remaining in extremely small populations preserved by caring biologists and conservationists, if at all.
Reports from a century ago tell of Model-T Fords stacked high with the feathered bodies of hundreds of prairie chickens, grouse, pheasants and more.
Alongside them, hunters of the past pose kneeling on one knee, smiling, holding their Winchesters.
It wouldn’t really be fair for us to judge their behavior.
At best, it was seen as the natural right of every frontiersman, and, at worst — an unfortunate reality of prairie life.
We could say they didn’t know any better; that they didn’t understand the ecological implications of extinguishing an entire species. But this framing itself is maybe somewhat faulty.
Can We Undo the Harm?
It’s not just the extinction of a single species that we’re talking about. It’s part of the biome, and the scary fact is, the effects of these changes may take a long time to appear, perhaps hundreds of years. Not mere decades.
Reviving lost prairie lands means uprooting thousands of trees; the cedars and mesquites with their long tap roots invading the water table that replace native grasses.
Then a dedicated effort would need to be made to raise and repopulate these birds.
And after all that work, if the prairie doesn’t have the natural dips and crests the birds prefer, they won’t return.
It is worth noting that many of the same agriculture practices that endanger prairie chickens also contributed to America’s great “Dust Bowl.”
Advocates for LPC conservation say that the practices required to build habitats for these birds are the same practices that are needed to maintain healthy agriculture. Crop and cattle rotation and soil conservation, along with the development of new practices to prevent future species loss.
In other words, they say what’s good for the chicken is good for us.
A Unique Environment
Looking at the documented regions where these birds have been recorded in Texas, it’s hard to imagine any of them being alive at all.
A road trip through the Panhandle will find fire stacks, earthen tanks, and soils that have soaked up years of residue from oil and gas production.
It’s no wonder that these birds have become victims of history. These animals have been shot, stabbed, and run out of their nesting grounds, mostly by large-scale agriculture and energy operations.
In 2010, Texas Parks and Wildlife worked to spread awareness about the project, and produced a short documentary, “Saving the Lesser Prairie Chicken,” where they interviewed landowners supporting the effort.
“I don’t know if you can find a cattleman who isn’t interested in the overall ecology of his ranch,” said Jay O’Brien, landowner from Amarillo,“ as long as nobody is dictating how they do their business.”
Our Insatiable Need
. Meadville, Pa.: Keystone View Company. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
Why should we care, and what are we to do?
Not eat? Not drive our cars?
Tell our Volunteer Fire Departments to not worry about that raging wildfire?
These are non-starters for most residents of the west, and it usually around this point in the story where questions like ‘why should I care about this little prairie chicken?’ start to come up.
What is the practical purpose of trying to preserve these creatures?
It seems that the LPC was not destined to be a winner in our economy.
Efforts to restore native grasslands cannot repopulate the ecology that surrounded them; that takes centuries to replicate.
Instead, the LPC has served as a foundation to one of the largest proxy wars in American environmentalism — a battle that points to the heart of larger issues.
Raising questions that are uncomfortable to look at squarely.
Should we be using this much oil, and is it even possible to cut back?
How many people would lose their jobs if we cut back in these areas of employment?
What about corn, or soybeans? Cotton, winter wheat, and maize?
Problems that are known for dooming civilizations of the past. Are we running out of water? How much meat should we eat? Is it a lot less than this?
The United States is currently the largest user and producer of petroleum energy in the world. A position that isn’t seen as a detriment or a weakness, but a strength, and one to be expanded and “unleashed.” But even if we filled up the prairies now dominated by oil production, and instead had miles of solar panels and wind farms. Would that be better for the LPC? Based on what we’ve learned so far, the answer is a resounding “no.”
During research for this article, the Texas Parks and Wildlife publications and U.S. Fish and Wildlife reports point to an America that seems to be slipping into the past, one where the Government and private landowners we’re starting to examine the larger implications of development and ecology.
Conservation efforts still continue, but with the numbers so low it’s hard for experts to say if they did much good in Texas. Efforts like the LPC Conservation Agreement, and the NRCS Initiative provide some options for landowners to help restore the native habitats.
Cost-sharing programs, agreements with oil and gas industries, where funds were paid in to develop two prairie acres for every acre of oil and gas development. But if a caliche road runs in-between two LPC populations, it’s the same old song and dance.
Now the conservation effort is almost entirely focused in Kansas, where the population remains in numbers high enough to at least have a festival.
The consensus seems to change based on the whims of the times. Right now it seems that nothing can stand in the way of development. Not science, not environmentalism, and not even public good will. And especially not the Lesser Prairie Chicken.
Works Cited:
“Conserving the Lesser Prairie Chicken”, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Report Online Resources, Accessed Aug. 2025. https://www.fws.gov/lpc
“Nongame and Rare Species Program: Federal Candidate and Petitioned Species Resources”, Texas Parks and Wildlife Online Resources, Accessed Aug. 2025. https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/lesserprairiechicken/
“Saving the Lesser Prairie Chicken”, Texas Parks and Wildlife, mini-documentary, published Aug. 2010. Accessed Aug. 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvAtg9L3N0c
Tompkins, Shannon. “Little Home On The Prairie”, The Houston Chronicle, Aug. 13 2009, p. 106. Accessed through newspapers.com, Aug. 2025.
1 Comment
This is amazingly well researched and written! It’s great someone is bringing attention to issues that most people do not know about. Will McDaniel rocks it hardcore every time. I did not know about the LPC yesterday, but i am glad that i do today.