Texas Parks & Wildlife, Volume 67, Number 10, October 2009 Page: 30
64 p.View a full description of this periodical.
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DESPITE WIND
ENERGY'S POSITIVE
TRAITS, THE
STATE'S LACK OF
REGULATIONS IS
HAVING UNKNOWN
REPERCUSSIONS
ON ITS WILDLIFE.otherworldly staccato calls build. These "booms" to fix it. In Texas, which has no mandates requir-
are punctuated by their pounding feet. The
researchers hear and feel these reverberations
beneath their boots. The acrid smell of oil pro-
duction permeates the winter air.
As dawn breaks, they see the male lesser
prairie-chickens performing their courtship rit-
ual. Bent at a g0-degree angle, the male defends
his territory. He displays power to try to woo a
female into copulation. Yellow eye-combs give
him the appearance of a furtive brow. He bleats
out a call, the red esophageal air sack inflating
like a balloon at the base of his neck. Red pinnae
feathers rise in a distinctive V behind his head.
Resembling a Native American headdress, the
pinnae are often broken and worn from battles.
If an adversary continues to approach, the male
will attack in the hopes of driving him away.
TPWD researchers have faced difficulty in cal-
culating the grouse's population because they're
difficult to track. Lack of knowledge about their
habits, alongside wind energy's fast development,
accounts for the species' sudden endangered list-
ing peril. The game bird was still on the state's
hunting list until last March. Despite the species'
availability, only a few grouse were harvested in
2007 and no permits were issued in 2008.
As with Goodnight's bison, the lesser prairie-
chicken is symbolic of the Great Plains. Yet the
grouse remains hidden amid the plains' shinnery
oak and sand sagebrush. It is hard to feel a
species' loss when you never even knew it exist-
ed. Which begs the question: Aside from the
federal impositions associated with the Endan-
gered Species Act, why should we care about the
bird at all?
"Honestly, we use the prairie-chicken as what
we call an 'umbrella species,"' says Jay Pruett,
conservation director of the Nature Conser-
vancy's Oklahoma branch. "They have varying
habitat requirements and there are varying
species that fit into each one of those habitats.
We feel that if the prairie habitat is being taken
care of for the prairie-chicken, it is also being
taken care of for all these other groups of
species that live there."
Ideally, wind turbines would be placed on land
that is already fragmented by commercial agri-
culture and oil and gas production. But devel-
opers understandably build where they find the
best wind and transmission potential. Iberdro-
la Renewables, the world's largest wind energy
provider, is taking an industry-leading step in
monitoring ecological impact. Their "Avian and
Bat Protection Plan" is a corporate commitment
to conducting pre-construction and post-con-
struction studies. The company reports its find-
ings to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. If a
problem arises, they work with the federal agencying post-construction studies, Iberdrola will
monitor their sites anyway.
The company recently partnered with TPWD
and Texas Tech University to research potential
development impact on lesser prairie-chickens
in Gray and Donley counties. Although no birds
were found, the study will help TPWD refine
their development guidelines.
"We have not yet confronted any very diffi-
cult situations where we would have to remove
or redesign a project in a major way," says
Andy Linehan, Iberdrola's director of wind
energy permitting. "But I think others will
face that because there are certainly a lot of
proposed projects throughout the Panhandle,
including areas with known lesser prairie-
chicken presence."
"I DON'T REALLYWANT TO LOOK at
turbines on my ranch," Jeff Haley says. His
grandfather's books line the walls alongside
selections like Plato's Republic, Malcolm
Gladwell's Blink and Cormac McCarthy's Blood
Meridian. "But if my neighbors put them up, I
wouldn't raise Cain because I'm adamantly
opposed to any person, agency or entity dictat-
ing what can or cannot be done on the land."
Haley's Gray County ranch falls under one of
the proposed CREZs. The state would have the
right of eminent domain to build transmission
lines over his property.
More than 90 percent of land in Texas is pri-
vately owned. The fate of state species is held in
the hands of landowners like Haley - men and
women who balance their families' economic
needs with overseeing their property's ecology.
That balance can be as complicated as human
nature. Goodnight cultivated a bison herd while
simultaneously displacing the species to make
room for his own cattle.
In a rapidly changing society, perhaps a
landowner's best asset is knowledge. TPWD
offers free land management consultation serv-
ices. Wind developers like Iberdrola will inspect
property and give their analysis. Independent
land management agents are available to give a
third opinion. For the landowner wanting to
learn more about his or her property, the
options are there.
"Goodnight conserved the buffalo at expense
and work for himself," Haley says. "When
you're out there every day, an attachment
grows. When your sweat hits the dirt, when you
see the sunsets, the sunrises, the morning sun
hitting the new snow, you can't help but have an
attachment for it." *30 * OCTOBER 2009
91ML11til MIA p,. ,
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Texas. Parks and Wildlife Department. Texas Parks & Wildlife, Volume 67, Number 10, October 2009, periodical, October 2009; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth641673/m1/34/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.