Adrian Hedden
Carlsbad Current-Argus
achedden@currentargus.com

Rancher Bret Riley believes that measures taken to save a struggling grouse in the plains of eastern New Mexico can also protect the land he relies on at his approximately 22,000-acre spread 20 miles west of Tatum.

The 62-year-old has owned the land known as Sand Ranch in the unincorporated Lea County community of Caprock for the past 13 years. He started leasing the land to raise cattle in 2008 and bought it outright in 2012.

Ten years later, the lesser prairie chicken was listed as endangered and in the years since, Riley began monitoring soil quality and taking steps, he said, to not only improve habitat for the birds but his livelihood raising cattle in the dusty eastern New Mexico prairie.

He said he was determined to continue doing so, even as President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday, May 7, called on a federal court to vacate the listing.

“We try not to let the listing or delisting alter our management on our properties. We try to do it the right way,” he said.

Riley’s ranch is situated about 50 miles from a piece of land labeled an “area of critical concern” by the U.S. Department of Interior because it could serve as suitable habitat for the endangered lesser prairie chicken.

The listing divided the bird’s status between two geographical ranges and two categories of jeopardy: endangered in the southern portion in southeast New Mexico and West Texas and threatened in the northern portion in parts of the northern Texas Panhandle, Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas.

An endangered species listing means the Fish and Wildlife Service believes extinction is imminent, requiring an agency recovery plan for the species and often restricting development on lands the agency believes are needed to restore the species’ numbers.

The alternative “threatened” status means a species is in danger of warranting an endangered listing in the future.

Both listing decisions could impede booming oil and gas production in the area, according to a 2023 lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court by the State of Texas and fossil fuel trade group the Permian Basin Petroleum Association. The May 7 motion sided with the plaintiffs, asking the court to roll back the listing.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement announcing the lawsuit that the listing decision would put key industries, such as oil and gas and agriculture, at risk.

“The Lesser Prairie-Chicken’s change in classification puts many of Texas’s conservation efforts at risk, all while bringing immeasurable harm to Texans’ property rights,” Paxton said. “My lawsuit aims to preserve both individual and states’ rights that are threatened by this rule and stop this Biden Administration policy in its tracks.”

But to Riley, taking away the listing and the regulations that come with it could mean unfettered impacts by industry on the ecosystems of the eastern New Mexico landscape.

“I think we have a problem with our prairie chicken populations because of encroachment and conversion in our part of the world,” Riley said. “A lot of that is oil and gas. I also think that politics get into the listing and the delisting a little too much.”

Feds reverse course

When Trump took office in January, he and his administration worked to limit regulations on the oil and gas industry by issuing a Jan. 20 executive order titled “Unleashing American Energy.”

The order called on federal agencies to reanalyze potential restrictions to energy development, including endangered species listings, established under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.

Months later, the motion filed in the Texas lawsuit by the Interior Department – the Fish and Wildlife Service’s parent agency – followed suit and argued the agency did not provide adequate support for the dual listing decisions for the prairie chicken.

Specifically, the agency said its previous leaders falsely separated the species into two “distinct population segments” (DPS), and that a new listing procedure was needed to correctly apply federal law.

In the meantime, the agency asked the court to vacate the listing.

“The Service concedes that it improperly applied its DPS Policy in a manner that tainted the substance of the final listing rule,” read the motion. “Given the seriousness of the error identified, the Service will be unable to correct the rule’s defects on remand short of engaging in an entirely new analysis.”

Amid the suit, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a motion to intervene in 2023 and defend the listing in court but was denied as the agency at the time planned to defend its decision.

But with the change in administration and recent motion filed to reverse course, Jason Rylander, an attorney with the Center, said on Wednesday the national nonprofit planned to fight it in court.

He contended that the recent federal motion would “doom” the species – which once numbered in the hundreds of thousands in its range – to extinction.

“There’s no question that it’s imperiled, especially in the southern portion of its range,” Rylander said. “Removing Endangered Species Act protections is a purely political act that won’t stand up in court.”