NM Game And Fish Department
To Consider Prairie Chicken

ALBUQUERQUE — The director of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish is expected to ask the game commission this week to list the lesser prairie chicken as "threatened" under the state's Wildlife Conservation Act.

Listing the lesser prairie chicken now, says Bob Frost, president of the New Mexico Cattle Growers, would be premature.

"This is the beginning of the listing process under the Wildlife Conservation Act," says Caren Cowan, executive secretary of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association.

The listing could affect landowner cooperation in protecting the species, adds Frost.

"When you take into account the effects that listing species have had on people's ability to use land, both public and private, you realize how carefully this decision must be made," says Frost, a San Jon, N.M., rancher.

The New Mexico Game Commission is scheduled to meet beginning at 9 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 9, at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe. Their agenda is expected to take them through Sept. 9 and Sept. 10.

The lesser prairie chicken is the 10th item on their agenda, Cowan says, so it may be late Thursday or early Friday before they get to it.

If the commission accepts the director's proposal, it will start a seven-month process which requires a public hearing in the quadrant of the state that will be affected by the listing. The commission will make its final decision on listing the prairie chicken after the public hearing or hearings.

The New Mexico Cattle Growers are asking for a delay in considering the prairie chicken as endangered due to the lack of scientific data.

Cowan says the NMDGF has done only roadside surveys for the past year from public roads. She insists at least four years of data is needed to establish population estimates. Surveys the Bureau of Land Management has done provide an index, not a population estimate, she says.

She says drouth may make the data that is available unreliable.

"Sampling varied greatly among years, and leks were not selected at random," Cowan points out.

Additionally, she says, the east side of the state has gotten more rain this year than in the past 55 years. She said 1999 data could provide an entirely different perspective on populations.

There is also a lack of data to determine what factors may be responsible for any population decline, including drouth, predators, woody encroachment and livestock grazing.

There is also a report that the commission is hiring a lesser prairie chicken biologist.

"It would seem that a decision to list should be made after a biologist dedicated to the species has had time to evaluate the data and issues, not before," says Frost. "There simply is not enough scientific data to make the decision. The NMCGA is not opposed to the protection of species that are truly in danger of extinction, but we feel that decisions to list should be based on sound science and research."

"I would think that if New Mexico listed it as endangered, the guys in Texas and Colorado are going to be in the same shape," Cowan notes.

Researchers say lesser prairie chicken numbers have declined greatly over the past 60 years. Where they were once plentiful on the plains and prairies, they are now limited to small pockets along the Texas-New Mexico state line, in the eastern Texas Panhandle along the Oklahoma state line, and in Colorado and Kansas.

Texas wildlife authorities say numbers of the bird, which prefers open prairie with nearby woody areas for nesting, have dropped because of farming practices, particularly turning pasture into cropland, although earlier this year, Texas wildlife biologists reported an increase in numbers among the leks, or groups of birds, in the southwest Texas Panhandle near the New Mexico state line.