The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has approved the lesser prairie chicken conservation plan and associated incidental take permit. The HCP is designed to minimize and offset impacts to the lesser prairie-chicken from renewable energy development in the Great Plains.  

The Endangered Species Act requires all incidental take permits to include HCPs, which describe the anticipated effects of a proposed taking and how those impacts will be minimized or mitigated.  

The HCP will cover wind and solar project development as well as transmission lines across the lesser prairie-chicken’s range in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. The plan will fully offset impacts from enrolled projects while providing regulatory certainty for the development of renewable energy across its range, should the lesser prairie-chicken become listed under the ESA in the future.  

Along with the final HCP, the service is publishing a final Environmental Assessment, which evaluates the effects and addresses comments received during the public comment period. 

Full implementation of the HCP is expected to potentially affect 500,000 acres of suitable lesser prairie-chicken habitat. Under the plan, industry participants will work with LPC Conservation, LLC, the permit administrator, to ensure projects minimize impacts to the lesser prairie-chicken, and mitigation is in place to offset their project’s impacts to the species and its habitat on a voluntary basis. The plans will be in effect for 30 years.  

The final plans can be found online at www.fws.gov/southwest/es/LPC.html.