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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Reuters
The lesser prairie chicken could get listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.
WASHINGTON -- A move by U.S. authorities to consider placing a small grassland bird native to parts of the oil and gas belt on the Endangered Species List has drawn the ire of some Western lawmakers.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday announced a plan to consider having the lesser prairie chicken listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.
The lesser prairie chicken is a medium-sized, gray-brown grouse, smaller and paler than the greater prairie chicken, its close relative.
Once found in abundant numbers across much of Southeastern Colorado, Eastern New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, Western Oklahoma and Western Kansas, the lesser prairie-chicken's historical range of native grasslands and prairies has been reduced by an estimated 84 percent, the service said.
Lawmakers in major oil and gas producing districts immediately cried foul.
"A listing will have permanent economic consequences for the people of Texas who live and work in the Permian Basin and the Texas Panhandle," said Representative Michael Conaway, a Republican.
Conaway's sprawling West Texas district produces much of the state's oil and about one-quarter of its gas.
Protecting the lesser prairie-chicken "could drive ranching families and energy producers out of business," said Republican Representative Randy Neugebauer, whose district in East-Central Texas is a large agricultural area.
New Mexico's Steve Pearce, chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, said federal species regulation was being "driven by lawyers for extreme interest groups."
"Listing cannot come soon enough for the lesser prairie chicken," said Taylor Jones, endangered species advocate for WildEarth Guardians, a Santa Fe environmental group that at one point sued the federal government in an attempt to protect the birds from oil and gas drilling.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has opened a 90-day comment period on the lesser prairie-chicken and is seeking input from the public and from the scientific community before making its final decision. Four public hearings will be held in February.
In the meantime, a number of state and federal agencies are working on a voluntary conservation planning effort to conserve the bird's habitat.
"Regardless of whether the lesser prairie-chicken ultimately requires protection under the ESA, its decline is a signal that our native grasslands are in trouble," said Benjamin Tuggle, Regional Director for the Service's Southwest Region.
"We know that these grasslands support not only dozens of native migratory bird and wildlife species, but also farmers, ranchers and local communities across the region," Tuggle said.
Lesser prairie chickens are considered "vulnerable," a step short of endangered, by the UK-based International Union for Conservation of Nature, whose "red list" tracks the conservation status of various species worldwide.
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"A listing will have permanent economic consequences for the people of Texas who live and work in the Permian Basin and the Texas Panhandle," said Representative Michael Conaway, a Republican.
Screw the animals, screw the plants, screw the people. Screw the whole damn planet. If it costs us money, we shouldn't do it. Alternative energy be damned, to Hell with protecting endangered species, and anyone complaining of illnesses due to things like fracking can go suck wind. Global warming is a stunt being pulled by treehuggers, no matter what their 'data' says. If God wants the world to warm, he'll make it warm, and if not he'll keep it cool. We shouldn't have to spend a dime to improve efficiency, protect the planet or find more renewable resources!
The post you just read was 100% sarcastic, used to illustrate the level of idiocy coming from certain groups of people. Do not take the post above seriously. If you agree with the above post then may you get hit by a bus and die alone.
Considering that Mars, Saturn, and other planets in our system are also warming - and at a slightly faster rate, I might add - I do not understand how they can continue to think that global warming is manmade. How is man making the other planets warm up as well when we haven't ever been to those planets?
Tammy, it's Bush's fault.
Tammy,
Ice cores from the Arctic and ant-Arctic reveal there has been several extreme warming and cooling periods in earth's history. The 'sky is falling' climate change activist point to the fact the recent year was the fourth warmest in the past 140 years and we have just experienced the third worst hurricane season on record........I wonder, were the climate change people screaming the sky is falling during the third, second and first warmest and second and first worst hurricane seasons on record.
It is what it is, actions far beyond man's control determine the climate and hurricane seasons, albeit man's actions may be hastening the pace of things considering there is now seven billion, and counting humans upon earth..........It is what it is. Man will eventually go the way of the dinosaur, he will consume, contaminate and destroy the very habitat that provides him life.
Of course you don't understand, Tammy. It's called "Science".
Don't worry about it... go watch TV.
Out in force are the blind!
You are truly an awesome -god! Make them see.
Do you do highway ad signs? LOL
-god
Yes it is Science, predicted by Isaac Newton and Leonhard Euber in 1755, further explained by Seth Carlos Chandler in 1891, Scienticically and Mathematically detailed by Milutin Milankovitch during WWI, and finally proven by Hays, Imbrie, and Shakleton in 1976! It's called 'Nutations' or 'Chandles Wobble'! It has been occuring, in 41,000 year cycles for the past 250 Million years!
The date 1976 is telling. It was what brought about the end of the last attempt to hy-jack our energy industries by the Progressives! That attempt was sold as Anthropogenic "Global Cooling"!
Hijack the largest profiteers in US American History?
LOL!!!
You have that absolutely backwards.
This is the same phony environmental issue that is trumped up anytime something useful presents itself. Remember the spotted owl? Turned out the owl was nesting in a variety of habitat, and harvesting timber was not a survival issue for the owls. Prairie chickens endangered? ridiculous. There is a LOT of prairie and plenty of range for prairie chickens, owls, slugs, whatever phony environmental emergency someone hallucinates.
Waaa...
Was just over at the pasture checking cows.Still about forty or so prairie chickens sitting on the fence.They have been here for years and we are in western Kansas.Even with our drought ,they are still around.They have to contend with owls,hawks and coyotes and still seem to survive.We have both greater and lesser varieties here too.If there is concern,they could be raised like pheasants are in this area and released back in the wild.We did that with chukkars a few years back.There are two gas wells(government owned) on that half section and the birds don't leave.They just move away from the noise like our cattle do.They seem to adapt .
Kansas, don't tell the tree huggers that. It'll spoil their day.
Steve,
I shut down a small logging operation I owned and operated in Washington state when the 'northern' spotted owl fiasco started. Turns out spotted owls are abundant from Alaska to Mexico, But they are divided and characterized according to the regions they mostly inhabit. After environmentalist successful put most small Washington and Oregon mills and logging operations out of business they concentrated on those in the 'Central' spotted owl region of California, then those in the 'southern' spotted owl region of New Mexico.
Did you know there are also several species of Grey wolf on the west coast ? There is the Alaskan, British Columbian, Olympic Peninsula, Rocky Mountain, Southern and Mexican Grey wolves. Like wise with Americans, There are Washingtonian, Oregonian, Texan, Floridian and Californian Americans, to name a few.........Do you suppose a spotted owl knows whether it is a northern or central spotted owl ?
Nice to hear you have a healthy population near you, Knasas! Because if there is not sufficient evidence that that is the case over the proposed range of protections, then the chicken is not really endangered, or more precisely, threatened.
I could say that the protection of Alligators has done wonders for the population to the point of too much success. But the fact that they have rebounded under protected status, and continue to be, is emblematic of ALL the protections placed to help preserve many species within the Park and Protected Areas. Returning the Everglades to 'Restorative Conditions' keeps getting shoved aside despite being repeatedly approved and funded, only to fall under more attacks by development and limestone mining. And it can never return to a natural habit as it was befor we nearly destroyed it. Tnat does not even take into account the continued pollutants forcing algae blooms/red tides which harm those remaining estuaries amd fish stocks.
And we are doing better than most areas needing protection(s). And it ain't just about a chicken.
Have a Super Fund Day!
Thanks to
Sorry for the misspell, Kansas. Got bit during editing. Some spiel about the Glades and saving the Oceans and sealife and how protections in place are not even slowing down Man's enchroachment. Blah blah blah on my part...
Here is some irony:
"Every chick counts, because spotted owls are vanishing faster than ever. Nearly 20 years after Forsman's research helped the federal government boot loggers off millions of acres to save the threatened owls, nature has thrown the birds a curveball. A bigger, meaner bird—the barred owl—now drives spotted owls from their turf. Some scientists and wildlife managers have called for arming crews with decoys, shotguns and recorded bird songs in an experimental effort to lure barred owls from the trees and kill them."
"The owl population crash finally began in the 1980s, about the time the environmental movement was finding its footing. In an effort to save what remained of the old-growth forests the birds needed to survive, radical environmentalists pounded steel or ceramic spikes into firs, which threatened to destroy chain saws and mill blades. They donned tree costumes to attract attention to their cause and crawled into tree platforms to disrupt logging. Counter-protests erupted. In angry mill towns, café owners provocatively served "spotted owl soup" and shops sold T-shirts and bumper stickers ("Save a Logger, Eat an Owl"). There were lawsuits, and, in 1990, the Northern subspecies of spotted owl came under the Endangered Species Act (two subspecies in other parts of the country were not affected). A sweeping federal court ruling in 1991 closed much of the Northwest woods to logging. By the end of the century, timber harvest on 24 million acres of federal land had dropped 90 percent from its heyday. The spotted owl crystallized the power of the species-protection law. No threatened animal has done more to change how we use land."
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Spotted-Owls-New-Nemesis.html#ixzz2Dw2cKixk
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
Ethics and the Environment: The Spotted Owl Controversy
Mark O'Neal
To all the idiots that voted for him.......
Good for you!
Umm the government makes decisions like this all the time, regardless of who is president. You dont really believe any president has 100% control over the government or anything do you?
The Left claims that Bush did.
Can you truly be that blind? Lisa jackson, Ken Salazar, Steven Chu, Arnie Duncan,ETC., ET AL; with these Socialists as Departement heads, YES Obama does have nearly 100% control!
This is a muli-faceted assualt on the promary pillars of our Society- Two specifically The Constitution, and Private Property!
If the energy and oil companies want to drill and produce their products then THEY have to show the environmental government agencies how they can do their job while protecting the land lakes and wildlife at the same time. To many times we have seen these companies leave their messes to others to clean up. It is still happening in other parts of the world like Africa, South America and Asia. An example in North America is in Canada at the oil shale extraction sites and the future mess being created and heavy environmental damage of the extraction process in pollution of rivers and marshes.
The primary users of energy are the city folks, and they dominate politics. So what can the country folks do? Cry, cry.
Humans are going extinct! $@%$ drill anyway, we need our dollarzes!
Can some one say agenda 21? The new world order wants most of us gone,,,look it up,,agenda 21
Well, THAT was stupid, saying it in public like that! Now the Illuminati have to kill you!
You'd better go underground tonight, and remember,,, if you post here again they can track you, so we won't be hearing from you anymore, right?
It's for your own protection.
-god. Now you're in trouble. . .
The "Endangered Species Act" was enacted for one purpose only, to control and limit development, growth and access to natural resources. Who could have imagined great swaths of land and natural resources would be off limits for development and public use because of a weed, spider, Kangaroo rat or flower fly that may, or may not be abundant around the world. The "Endangered Species Act" was the brain child of the environmental activist.
The oldest and most successful strategy of war has always been, control the land thy enemy inhabits and you control thy enemy, his movements and his livelihood.
you people are so stupid. a bird has few requirements to be happy. simply move it to a similar place. it don't care one way or the other. bird brains
thought govt believed in Darwin's theory of evolution if it is going extinct we shouldn't interfere
While farming and ranching in some cases may and I emphases may have an effect, oil production and pipelines have no long term affect. In fact Elk Hills is a heavily produced area and is also a game preserve. The Kit Fox was listed as endangered and the population is higher on the lease then in the surrounding area. This is just another end run by the environmentalists to shutdown oil production and cripple our economy. It's the same play as trying to have the Sand Dune Lizard listed as endangered. Given a choice most of these extremist would rather see the death of human then an animal. They are to animal rights as the Muslims are to religion.
...hands shovel to Roger so he can dig a little deeper...
Any species, large or small, that gets in the way of "progress," ENERGY or PROFITS, kill them off a.s.a.p. Back to the business of business. Bring in a few taxidermists to "stuff & fluff" enough of the "new extinct" to flush out the museums for those elementary school field trips. "See Johnny, this is what the Lesser Prairie Chicken looked like." Yawn, "Can we go to Mac Donald's now?"
Works for me.
Lesser prairie chicken McNuggets.
Any species large or small that gets in the way of BUSINESS, ENERGY or PROFITS let them all die a.s.a.p. Just get on with the business of business. Bring in a few taxidermists to "stuff & fluff" enough of the "newly extinct" to fill the museums for those noisy elementary school field trips. "See Johnny, this is what a Lesser Prairie Chicken looked like." Yawn! "Can we go to Mac Donald's now?"
Any species large or small that gets in the way of BUSINESS, ENERGY or PROFITS let them all die a.s.a.p. Just get on with the business of business. Bring in a few taxidermists to "stuff & fluff" enough of the "newly extinct" to fill the museums for those noisy elementary school field trips. "See Johnny, this is what a Lesser Prairie Chicken looked like." Yawn! "Can we go to Mac Donald's now?"
Surprizingly, that was as idiotic an Alinsky rant the third time as it was the first time! DUH!
Never mind the prairie chickens or any other species that walks,swims,crawls or flys. The thirst for Texans' gluttonous SUVs and trucks MUST be quenched at all costs. Case in point: the boxcar Chevy Suburban was once deemed the unofficial ''state vehicle'' in tune with the old adage''everything is bigger in the Lone Star State.''
One has to only examine the effects of palm oil ''plantations'' in Indonesia or cattle/soybean ''farming'' in the Amazon basin to ascertain the irreversible effects on the environment.
Spoken like a true city dweller. One who can't tell a Pussy Willow from a Dog Wood and upon observing a pile of discarded milk bottles exclaims "oh look, a cows nest" !
AH, The Spotted Owl keeps coming up on this vine so let me tell you the latest news on this bird. It seems after years of fighting to save it the environmentalists have discovered that logging wasn't the problem. You see the Barn Owl has decided that the Spotted Owl is a good source of food and are killing them. So, what do our environmentalists want to do to save the Spotted Owl? They are going to start killing the Barn Owl. What I find funny about this whole thing is that the environmentalist are trying to change nature's way. Nature made this choice not man!
That is wrong.
That is right.
Both require Old Growth Forests to remain. Without protections of those Old Growth Forests, MANY species would disappear, and the inherent Environment Loss would contribute to further and more rapid Climate Change, just as the removal of most of our Old Growth Forests Worldwid has.
Peace
That is true.
Nature is all about change and cycles. Species die out; this is normal. Stopping that natural process is not. Even if human action wipes out a species, it is not like an area is now devoid of life; something else takes it place. The ESA has had little success in accomplishing its purpose.
The best thing is this will bring the installation of inefficient, unreliable, expensive, bird and bat chopping wind turbines to a screeching halt where the lesser prairie chicken lives.
From 2010:
http://www.wfaa.com/green/news/prairie-chicken-problem-109317584.html
From 2008:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1507356/windpower_growth_could_put_prairie_chickens_on_endangered_list/
Now we will see how much the so called "green" environmentalists really care for the environment. So far the wind turbine industry has been given a free ride when it comes to killing birds.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/16/energy-in-america-dead-birds-unintended-consequence-wind-power-development/
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-04-windmills-usat_x.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/08/08/08climatewire-bats-and-birds-face-serious-threats-from-gro-10511.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/us-wind-energy-cranes-idUSTRE76D76I20110714
http://exposethemedia.com/2011/08/17/wind-farms-killing-over-1000-birds-a-day/
"Regardless of whether the lesser prairie-chicken ultimately requires protection under the ESA, its decline is a signal that our native grasslands are in trouble," said Benjamin Tuggle, Regional Director for the Service's Southwest Region.
OK, so the statement above is the main point. I'm from Lovington, NM, right there in the Permian Basin, which is currently having one of its biggest oil booms in history. In Hobbs, for example, just 20 miles south of Lovington, they are producing so much oil that they can't ship it out by truck any longer, there's too much. It has to go out by rail and they are still having problems finding enough rail cars and employees to work them to get the oil to refineries. The two local ones, on the Hobbs-Lovington Hiway and in Artesia, are working full-tilt boogie. This is all information I read in the Hobbs newspaper while I was in Hobbs in October to visit family. The News-Sun was fairly bragging about the boom and printed comments from oil producers about how they just can't seem to hire enough people right now.
My sister and her husband ranch in Hobbs. Their pastures have been devastated by the drought and human-caused grassfires. They've had to supplement grazing with hay even into summer this year because there hadn't been much precipitation last winter and spring. A lot of their pasture burned last year and the year before. They finally got a decent 'Monsoon' starting in August and, in October, their pasture looked pretty good. But what about next year? They've already sold off 2/3 of their herd (horses and mules) and are doing very little breeding for the forseeable future.
There used to be Lesser Prairie Chicken all over SE New Mexico and west into Artesia when I lived there. Where are they now? Haven't seen any Horned Toads (horny toads) much, either. We used to see them all the time. Got lots of rabbits, gophers, ants and flies, though.
Pump all that oil you want. Just work as hard on alternative energy and protect the lands around the oilfields. I have noticed signs of solar and wind energy production in that area. I unreservedly applaud these infant businesses!! NM has plenty of sun and wind even though these methods also have their minor drawbacks. Neither sun nor wind energy production has the infrastructure oil has and solar panels can cause their own forms of damage to the land.There are complaints of noisy wind turbines but I don't think they're louder than a rig or a pumpjack, do you?
I wish I could find the picture I took of the oilfield between Artesia and Hobbs. It looks pretty futuristic with all those pump jacks and rigs and pulling units and tank farms and oilers and pickups all over the place. The occasional cow looks kinda dusty and forlorn. And bony. Some of those pumpjacks and rigs are so close you can walk to a new one every 10 minutes or so; don't even need to drive. And when the wind blows (most of the time, actually), forget it. The stinging sand, dirt and dust from erosion is terrible.
The land looks horrible in my old stomping grounds and hay is very expensive there. Why are we doing this? Is oil and the area pollution that is a by-product of oil drilling just one of those things you have to put up with? Oh, jeez!! The SMELL from Artesia to Seminole is awful despite the old joke about it being the smell of money. Is the extinction of local fauna and flora the accepted result of oil drilling? And fracking; sinkholes, subsidence and pollution of ground water? We have enough problem with water as it is in that part of the country.
I love the way I can see for miles and miles when I go home and top the cap in Maljamar but it hurts my heart to see the condition of the land now days. Let's not have the Llano Estacado looking like the Dust Bowl of the 30's. You ranchers and farmers and oilmen have got to look further down the road than the distance to your own pockets. I love New Mexico and she will always be my home in my heart but I worry about her.
Isn't there some place in the middle that we can meet so we can provide cheap energy to ourselves without totally devasting the land? I'd like my grandkids to be able to 'top the cap' in the future and not just look at pictures of how it used to be.
The neo-con responses here are awesome! EPA is too much this and that! ;-) Odd how it is a GOP started agency meant to protect the environment... guess it is better to have the world ruined/poisoned/devoid of life with below average pay jobs created while the uber elite to rakes in even greater profits.
That's what you're saying right? Poison, destroy the world while you're amassing even greater fortunes as long as we're making $10 an hour? Betcha think BP was right in the Deep Water Horizon event too.