A different approach Proposals to list the bird as a threatened species have generated enormous controversy. Fearing restrictions on how they use their land, ranchers complained that more research is needed to justify listing. Conservationists, meanwhile, contend listing is needed to raise awareness of the prairie chicken's problems and save the bird from becoming more severely imperiled. The New Mexico Game and Fish Department, after intense lobbying from ranch groups and Lt. Gov. Walter Bradley, recently withdrew its proposal to give the bird threatened status under state law. In place of that recommendation, the state wildlife agency issued a management plan that calls for hiring staff and taking other steps to conserve chickens.
Nobody wants the bird to disappear.
Still, the withdrawal has angered conservationists. As goes the prairie chicken, so goes the prairie.