Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
QCS Managing Editor
State Rep. Dennis Roch (R-Logan) wants New Mexico to claim sovereignty over its lesser prairie chicken (LPC) population, as Kansas did last year.
He has proposed a bill, HB468, that would proclaimNew Mexico has sole jurisdiction over management of the bird’s habitat, and a hearing on that bill is scheduled today at the State Capitol in Santa Fe.
Roch said he invited several Quay County farmers, ranchers and their advocates to testify today.
“Obviously, the USFWS listing of the bird as ‘threatened’ is not supported by scientific evidence,”Roch said, “and, left unchecked, the listing could adversely impact such activities as farming and ranching, oil and gas production, electric transmission, and renewable energy development.”
Research shows “the LPC’s population numbers often track closely with drought conditions,” Roch said, “suggesting that as drought conditions continue to improve, the bird's population will also surge.”
In another measure, a memorial, Roch proposes to censure the federal Fish and Wildlife Service for declaring the LPC to be “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act based on incompelete information.
The “threatened” designation is not as severe as an “endangered” label, but it allows federal authorities to regulate activities that could interfere with the LPC’s habitat. Since the bird’s habitat in New Mexico crosses farms, ranches, and oil and gas fields, there has been much resistance to the bird’s “threatened” status from these industries.
“I have introduced HB 468 to serve notice to the federal government that their restrictions are unwarranted and unwelcome,” Roch said.
Quay Valley Rancher Tom Sidwell said Monday he plans to testify in favor of Roch’s bill today.
Sidwell and Bill Humphries, another Quay Valley rancher, have campaigned against special designation for the LPC.
Sidwell said federal authorities have betrayed the five states, that developed the LPC habitat management plan. Besides New Mexico, the states signed on to the plan include Kansas, Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma.
HB 468 is designed to “give the plan time to work,” Roch said.
Sidwell said, “The deal was that they would accept the states’ plan and not give the bird a designation, but they declared the bird ‘threatened.’”
When the Fish and Wildlife Service made the designation, however, it also found that the five-state plan would be sufficient to adequately manage habitat for the birds.
Before the LPC received the “threatened” designation, Sidwell said, states had authority to manage this and other species.
A report last July also showed that, as opponents of the bird’s designation had predicted, the LPC’s population increased as better rainfall enhanced its habitat.
The survey, conducted by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) showed that LPC populations had increased by 20 percent in 2014, from 18,747 birds in 2013 to 22,415 last July.
“While wildlife biologists are encouraged by the increase,” WAFWA cautioned in a news release, “they note that prairie-chicken numbers can fluctuate up and down from year to year, mainly due to grassland habitat conditions influenced by rainfall.”
Bill Van Pelt, WAFWA’s grasslands coordinator, said, “Just as with last year’s population decrease, we shouldn’t read too much into short-term fluctuations over one or two years.”
“This population response underscores the importance of implementing the Lesser Prairie-Chicken Range-wide Conservation Plan,” he added. The Range-wide Conservation Plan is the five-state regional plan to manage the bird’s habitat.