By Anna Kaminski

Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA — The lesser prairie chicken, a dancing grouse that has long teetered between threatened and endangered classifications, lost its federal protections in court in a victory for Great Plains petroleum and cattle industries.

In a Tuesday decision from a Texas federal court, the lesser prairie chicken was stripped of any endangered or threatened species protections, which were established through a Biden-era ruling.

The Trump administration challenged that ruling, arguing it contained mistakes, and the lesser prairie chicken would be adequately protected without endangered or threatened classifications.

U.S. District Judge David Counts, a Trump appointee, agreed, denying a slate of motions in a 15-page omnibus order that reversed the U.S. Fish and

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