Submitted Electronically via eRulemaking Portal

I support the listing of the lesser prairie chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctusas) a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act unless a comprehensive habitat exchange program (as defined by the Environmental Defense Fund) can be adopted and implemented such that the chicken is put on track to be restored to IUCN "least threatened" status over 75% of the range it enjoyed prior to settlement of the southern great plains. Habitat destruction is the problem. As an indicator species, the severe general decline in recent decades of the prairie chicken tells us that the greater tragedy is the decline of the species's habitat, the southern great plains. Since settlement of this habitat is destined to decline regardless over the next century - with global warming remaining unchecked and the critical Oglalla Aquifer in inexorable decline - it is past time to adopt measures necessary to the restoration of this species to its natural abundance else it disappears too along with the area's current agricultural and energy-extraction economy. The southern great plains' potential for wind energy generation, petroleum extraction and agriculture is of too little future consequence to justify their preference over the survival of the lesser prairie chicken and the other species with which it shares habitat essential for these species' abundance.