They strutted, leaped in the air with feathers spread, and bowed, but the greatest thrill was watching them puff up the garish, red-orange air sacs on either side of their necks.

Concealed in a blind, we watched late into the morning that spring of 1999, until the last birds — members of a rapidly vanishing species — flew off.

I recalled that wonderful day recently, because in late March, after countless lawsuits and scientific opinions, the lesser prairie chicken in New Mexico, Colorado and eastwards finally got what it so desperately needs — federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The designation, however, comes 25 long years after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first determined that this magical dancing bird could go the way of the passenger pigeon.

In June 1988, the Service did something seemingly mundane, though it had profound consequences. It relegated the lesser prairie chicken to what might be called endangered species purgatory — making its protection status “warranted but precluded” under the Endangered Species Act. Precluded apparently meant, “We should list the birds but find it impossible to do that.”

For decades, the Fish and Wildlife Service, under pressure from opponents in Congress and powerful industries, has used this designation to delay Endangered Species Act protections for hundreds of species that need an ecological safety net, including the lesser prairie chicken.

The result since 1998 has been predictable: The bird’s numbers have plummeted. In many parts of the West, it has disappeared entirely. Lesser prairie chickens now number about 30,000, less than 2% of what they were in the 19th century when the birds flourished in the hundreds of thousands.

Controversy around granting Endangered Species Act protection for the lesser prairie chicken has mainly been about oil and gas development. Meaningful protection of this bird, whose habitat covers millions of acres across New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma, would mean restraint from the oil and gas and agricultural industries. Pump jacks and plows are the greatest threats to prairie chicken survival.

Kansas Republicans, namely Sen. Roger Marshall and Rep. Tracy Mann, have already pressured the Fish and Wildlife Service to delay the date that the listing takes effect. Texas has also filed a lawsuit to block the listing, and Kansas and Oklahoma are threatening to sue. The long struggle to keep the birds alive is far from over.

Fifty years ago, Congress enacted the Endangered Species Act to recognize the importance of endangered and threatened species, citing their “esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational and scientific value to the Nation and its people.” The Act’s vision was remarkable, and Americans are fortunate that the law fought for a half-century ago continues to be fought for today.

I am proud that our nation passed this powerful law to protect the diversity of life. But for our nation’s laws to really mean something, they must be enforced, even when — especially when — opponents are among the most economically and politically powerful industries.

You’d think that identifying a species as “endangered” meant that there was still time to save it. But the prairie chicken, along with its high-profile distant cousin, the sage grouse, is running out of time. The birds need lots of open space, and the new designation only puts some constraints on existing oil and gas operations, while limiting new development.

Later this spring, I intend to return to the prairies near the town of Milnesand, New Mexico, this time with my nine-year-old twins in tow. I can only hope that the birds are still dancing. I also hope that my boys have the opportunity to watch and wonder about why these birds return to woo females at the same place each spring, and what we, as a society, must do to ensure that the dance continues.

John Horning is a contributor to Writers on the Range, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is the executive director of WildEarth Guardians and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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The poem, Mary Oliver’s Spring, describes the emergence of a black bear from its winter slumber. Oliver writes: “There is only one question: how to love this world.”

This spring, as bruins emerged across the American West, I found myself wondering about the secret lives bears lead. As their hunger grows, do they imagine eating trout from a Rocky Mountain stream?

Is it hunger pangs or some deeper yearning — perhaps to experience the new world – that drives bears from the comfort and warmth of their dens?

I’ve been thinking about bears and how to love their world because bear-management-practices have been in the spotlight recently, a light that intensified after two people were killed by bears, one in Montana and one in Colorado.

The death of those people was tragic. Yet, we must remember that fatal attacks remain rare. A bear does not wake up in the morning, pack a rifle, and set out to kill a human being. Bears struggle to survive in an increasingly diminishing wild that brings them in contact with humans more frequently.

Humanity’s mission, I believe, is not to kill them but to find ways to coexist. 

On April 30, Montana Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a bill that allows hunters to use hounds to hunt black bears in the spring, when they’re with cubs and ravenous for food. This is the same governor who illegally trapped and killed one of Yellowstone’s iconic wolves.

One of the bills’ key sponsors, state Sen. Tom MacGillivray, offered a consistent refrain about bears: “Over the last seven, eight years we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in the whitetail population, and, interestingly enough, a dramatic increase in the black bear population,” he said. “This bill helps to balance that out.”

Not a shred of science supports this contention. There’s a long-standing war on carnivores and blaming bears is a convenient excuse for what ails the deer and the deer hunter’s world. In reality, a complex host of factors including habitat loss due to sprawl, climate change and other dynamics are to blame.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, a federal judge struck down a controversial plan supported by the state’s wildlife agency, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department, to “study” whether killing black bears  —  and mountain lions — would benefit mule deer. Sadly, the judge’s ruling denying federal funding of the bear-killing plan came too late for the dozens of Colorado bears that were killed in the study, one the agency’s scientists had to know was laden with anti-carnivore bias.

Though Colorado and Montana are worlds apart on the political spectrum, the hostility towards bears and other carnivores is a tie that binds, whether it originates in a state legislature or in the state agency charged with managing wildlife.

At a time when the attitudes of most Montanans, Coloradans and Americans at large are shifting dramatically to favor greater coexistence with fanged creatures, those in power over the lives of wild animals are digging in their heels. Instead of figuring out how to live with them, Montana and Colorado are making it easier to kill bears.

The word poetry comes from the Greek poetes, meaning “to create.” Whenever possible, I believe we should attempt to create opportunities for all life to thrive. It pains me that often those at the state level responsible for overseeing the management of wildlife seem to take more pleasure in the destruction of bears than in figuring out better ways for humans to coexist with them.

Wildlife management needs a new reason to exist, one that isn’t based on killing. Its mission might read like this: We aim to protect wildlife, making no distinction between predator and prey. We aim to enhance that sense of wonder most of us experience when we see animals in the wild.

And instead of taking more courses in traditional wildlife management, the profession might consider including reading some of the best American poetry inspired by nature and the creatures that depend on still-wild places.

They could start with Mary Oliver’s Spring.

John Horning is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is the executive director of WildEarth Guardians.

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