HOUSTON >> The federal government is offering first-of-its-kind legal protections for landowners who implement conservation measures to protect the lesser prairie chicken's dwindling populations across five states.

The move is designed to ease the concerns of landowners, ranchers and the energy industry that they would no longer be able to operate in the bird's habitat if the prairie grouse is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The agreement could also serve as a model for other areas where industry and landowners could be impacted by a threatened or endangered animal.

The deal is simple: Those who take steps to conserve and preserve habitat will receive a letter guaranteeing they will not be fined or prosecuted if lesser prairie chickens are found dead on their property.

"As long as they continue to implement the ... conservation plan then they have nothing to fear from the Endangered Species Act or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," Dan Ashe, the wildlife service's director, told The Associated Press.

The wildlife service is expected to announce by March 30 whether to list the lesser prairie chicken as a federally protected threatened species, impacting the plains of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma. The pending decision has prompted vocal opposition and sparked a broad state-run initiative designed to conserve areas in hopes of avoiding a federal listing for the bird.


The federal offer is a unique agreement between the wildlife service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service. The agencies will have conservation practices outlined and agreements available in the coming weeks.

To enter an agreement, landowners would have to undertake specific conservation measures, such as keeping the grasses long enough to hide nests, clearing brush and building ramps in cattle water troughs to ensure the birds don't drown. Grants could help cover the costs.

In Texas, the agreement covers a 23-county region where this grayish brown, medium-sized bird makes its home and nests in the long prairie grasses from March to July.

The prairie grouse was once abundant in its five-state region, but its historical home of grasslands and prairies has been reduced by an estimated 84 percent as development converted habitat to other uses. When federal regulators first proposed in December 2012 to list the bird under the Endangered Species Act, there were fewer than 45,000, according to the wildlife service. A recent survey counted 18,000. Drought and loss of habitat are blamed for the decline.

Jerry Homfeld, whose family has been ranching and farming in the Texas Panhandle town of Hereford since the 1920s, said he would be interested in the federal government's offer. About half his family's 5,000 acres are set aside for conservation; the other half is mostly for cattle grazing with shorter, native grasses where the birds are less likely to thrive.

"It scares me," he said. "If they implement this chicken as an endangered species we might not be able to graze our land, nothing, and that's our living."

The oil and gas industry, which has boomed in recent years in the bird's habitat, has opposed federal protections and worked with state wildlife departments to put together a "range-wide plan" that allows industry, landowners and ranchers to be paid to set aside conservation land or pay more to operate in crucial habitat.

The new agreement allows landowners who entered such a deal to use that land — for example an energy company interested in drilling a well — if they set aside double the acreage elsewhere as protected habitat for the lesser prairie chicken, said Salvador Salinas, head of the NRCS in Texas.

Ultimately, the goal is for the different plans to overlap and provide landowners, ranchers and the energy industry several avenues to work, he said.

Ben Shepperd, president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, which represents drillers in an oil-rich, desert-like area of West Texas that includes prime chicken habitat, said his members have been actively involved in the range-wide plan. He said they could be interested in the new federal offer, though they have yet to see a written document.

He said the oil and gas industry had already set aside at least 1.3 million acres for conservation under the range-wide plan.

"It's a huge area they are talking about severely limiting economic development in, a 20-million acre area in five states," Shepperd said, explaining why all the parties are entering unprecedented agreements ahead of the bird's listing.

"They want to get it right because if they don't they've got a lot of angry people, and the bird suffers," he added, noting that ultimately the industry hopes that through proactive conservation they will be able to prevent the chicken from being listed as threatened.

