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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken the lesser prairie-chicken off the federal Endangered Species Act list. That means the bird no longer has federal protection for either its northern or southern populations. The agency made the change to follow recent federal court orders.

The new rule took effect Feb. 26, 2026. It updates federal regulations to remove both groups of the bird from the endangered and threatened species list. It also eliminates a special protection rule that had applied to the northern population.

This decision comes after several legal challenges. In 2025, federal courts overturned the earlier decisions to list the bird. The courts said the federal protections should not apply. Because of those rulings, the Endangered Species Act protections actually ended when the court orders were filed in March and August 2025, even though the official rule change did not happen until this year.

The lesser prairie-chicken has been part of a long debate over conservation and land use. It was first listed in 2022, with the northern population considered threatened and the southern population considered endangered because of habitat loss across the Great Plains. Its status has changed several times in recent years.