Colorado’s lesser prairie-chicken population has fallen from more than 80,000 birds in 1975 to just 89 breeding males, according to a 2024 data. To restore the population of the critically threatened grassland bird, nearly 2,100 acres of land in the state’s southeastern plains have now been acquired.The Southern Plains Land Trust bought the former private ranch in August for just under $2 million through grants and donations, Rocky Mountain PBS reported. The property is in Kiowa County and lies next to the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site.The land trust will work with Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) to restore the property. Work is expected to begin next winter or spring, with the aim of allowing the grassland to recover and restoring key plant species needed by lesser prairie-chickens.The location of the new preserve is within 10 miles of an active lesser prairie-chicken “lek”. A lek is a traditional breeding ground where male birds gather during mating season to display and compete for mates.
Habitat loss has reduced the population
Henry Pollock, an ecologist, conservation biologist and executive director of the Southern Plains Land Trust, said habitat loss and overgrazing have played a major role in the species’ decline.“The lesser prairie-chickens are declining rapidly. A lot of that is due to habitat loss and also overgrazing on remaining grassland,” Pollock said. “By letting the land rest and recover a little bit and restoring some of these key grass species for breeding, we hope that they will recolonise naturally, although there is the possibility that we could do a translocation in the future,” he added.Lesser prairie-chickens are brown and white grassland birds about the size of a soccer ball. They weigh between one and two pounds. During mating season, males inflate air sacs in their necks, making their reddish or orange patches more noticeable to females.The birds live in the Sand Sagebrush Ecoregion, which stretches across southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas and a small part of western Oklahoma. CPW lists habitat loss and fragmentation, energy development, agriculture and grazing, and climate change among the threats to the species.Habitat loss has also left the birds living in scattered areas. Pollock said some breeding habitat has been grazed away, including the grasses and smaller habitats used by the birds for nesting.“The lesser prairie-chickens, over a long period of time, some of their breeding habitat has kind of been grazed off the landscape. That includes bunch grasses and little micro habitats for where they have their nest,” Pollock said.The new property is expected to provide an area where grassland can recover and habitat can be restored close to an existing breeding site.
CPW has used translocation to help the birds
CPW hasalso carried out translocation projects, moving lesser prairie-chickens from one area to another. From 2016 through 2019, CPW worked with Kansas to move 411 birds from the Short-Grass Prairie in northwestern Kansas to the Sand Sagebrush Ecoregion. The birds were released at the Comanche National Grasslands in Colorado and the Cimarron National Grasslands in southwestern Kansas.The project produced early signs of success. One year after it ended, the relocated birds had established 20 leks across the two sites. There were 115 males and an estimated population of about 250 birds in total, according to wildlife biologist Jonathan Reitz, who worked on the project.“At the end of the day, that’s really successful. If somebody told me at the front end that for every two birds that you move, one is actually going to get established in a population, I would have been ecstatic because these birds are getting moved to an entirely different landscape,” Reitz said.However, the population later declined. Reitz said years of drought in the region contributed to the decline.The project also showed the importance of suitable habitat for the birds after they are moved. Reitz said land needs to be managed properly if conservation efforts are to improve conditions for the species.“The situation is really dire. You need land that’s going to be managed properly for the chicken,” Reitz said. “And the reality is if we want those lands managed in a way that’s going to improve things for some of the wildlife species, we’ve got to figure out ways to pay for it.”
Federal protection changed in 2026
The new preserve comes as the lesser prairie-chicken’s federal protection has changed. The US Fish and Wildlife Service removed both the northern and southern distinct population segments from the federal Endangered Species Act list in 2026 in response to a court order.The southern population had been listed as endangered and the northern population as threatened in 2022. Despite the removal, Pollock said the species remains the most endangered bird in the Southern Great Plains.