Lesser Prairie Chicken May Lose Endangered Species Status

FLORA LICHTMAN: Hey, this is Flora Lichtman. You’re listening to Science Friday. What a bird known for its flamboyant courtship rituals can tell us about the Trump administration’s approach to environmental policy and protections for endangered species– we’re talking about the saga of the lesser prairie chicken. This bird was granted endangered species status in 2023, and now the Department of Interior is moving to revoke those protections.

Joining me now to discuss that story and other science stories from the week are Benji Jones, environmental correspondent at Vox, based in New York City, and Science Friday producer Shoshannah Buxbaum. Thanks for being here.

BENJI JONES: Hey, thanks for having me.

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: Thanks for having me in my inaugural guest on news roundup.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Glad to have you both. Benji, so there’s been drama around the lesser prairie chicken. Will you start by just introducing us to this bird?

BENJI JONES: Yes. This bird is a personal favorite of mine. It is not like your typical charismatic avian species, like a bald eagle or a falcon. It is pretty bizarre looking.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I love it already.

BENJI JONES: So this bird is, like, the size of a football. The males start doing this funny dance where they inflate these yellow combs above their eyes, they erect these tail feathers behind their heads. And they also inflate these red sacs on their neck. And then they just start stomping their feet. It is so cool to watch. And the sound is amazing too. It’s called booming. And I think the way I describe it is like yodeling but on fast forward.

[LESSER PRAIRIE CHICKEN BOOMING]

FLORA LICHTMAN: OK. It almost sounds like a bird blowing bubbles underwater.

BENJI JONES: Totally, totally.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Where do they live?

BENJI JONES: They live in the Southern Great Plains, so like Northern Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, where you have a lot of sage, where you have a lot of grassland habitat.

FLORA LICHTMAN: OK. And so they were put on the endangered species list in 2023. They were granted that status. What is happening with them now?

BENJI JONES: God, yeah. So this bird has been just in this game of political ping pong. It’s been listed, delisted, listed. And now the Trump administration is moving to delist it again. So basically, there was a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas and also some industry groups in Texas, including the Permian Basin Petroleum Association and some livestock groups as well to delist this bird, which is perceived by many people in these industries as being an impediment to oil and gas development.

And the Trump administration, as you’re probably well aware, is this administration if drill, baby, drill– is really prioritizing energy development over wildlife protections. And this bird is seen as just a blockage to developing more oil and gas, even though oil and gas really only covers a small part of the bird’s territory. And so these lawsuits to try to delist the birds have been going through the courts. And the administration basically just said, OK, we’re going to give in and move to just vacate the protected status of this bird, which is a full 180 of what the Biden administration was doing.

So basically, once Trump came into power, the Department of Interior, which oversees endangered species listing, basically said, OK, we don’t agree with our own decision to list this bird as protected again.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I was under the impression that listing a species was a long, complicated process and required public comment. Can the Department of Interior just say, oh no, actually, we’re going to take it off the list now?

BENJI JONES: That is the single most important question, and I have not been able to get a super clear answer on that. There is some precedent of that happening in certain courts, where you do see a full delisting. But typically, you would expect the government to have to go through that same drawn-out process. There were 30,000 public comments submitted for listing the species in 2023. And so what does it mean to just fully ignore all of that evidence, that whole process, and go through this delisting? Certainly it’s going to be fought in lawsuits. There will be an appeal. So it’s not like a guarantee that the Trump administration is going to get what it wants here.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Benji, you’ve also been reporting on renewable energy. President Trump has been very vocal about his opposition to wind power. But I found your article really fascinating. Your reporting suggests that wind isn’t as partisan as it may seem.

BENJI JONES: Yeah. So I wanted to write about wind energy in my home state of Iowa, which is the number one state for wind energy, just by the portion of the state’s energy that comes from wind. It’s about 60% That’s more than any other state in the country. And I was interested in this because, A, I’ve seen so many turbines when I go home. It’s a big MAGA state. And as you said, Trump, he’s been badmouthing wind for over a decade. And more recently, he literally said, quote, “We’re not going to do the wind thing.”

FLORA LICHTMAN: So what did you hear from the Iowans you talked to? Did they feel like there was a conflict here?

BENJI JONES: I talked to this farmer, for example, this guy named Dave Johnson, who has four windmills on his property. They earn him about $30,000 a year in addition to his livestock farm. He described this as like the 401(k) that he never had, so really, really benefiting from wind. And he’s a Trump supporter. And when I asked him if there was a tension there, he kind of brushed it off and mentioned that, look, I don’t think we should believe what Trump is saying around wind energy.

And Iowa is so dependent on wind energy, as are other red states like Texas and Oklahoma, that ultimately, when push comes to shove, we’re not going to see a big impact on the wind energy from Trump’s rhetoric in Iowa about this.

FLORA LICHTMAN: For Iowans, it’s about economic development.

BENJI JONES: Yeah, exactly. And the other really interesting thing about the story about Iowa for me is, it really shows that wind energy and most renewable energy is just about economics. The reason we’ve seen such astronomical growth of these sectors of solar and wind is because they just make financial sense. Most recent data shows that wind is among the cheapest, if not the cheapest, new source of energy. And that is the message that really resonates, no matter where you are in whatever political district.

FLORA LICHTMAN: OK. Shoshannah, let’s turn to you. What science news caught your eye this week?

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: OK. The FDA approved the first at-home cervical screening tool. So instead of going to the gynecologist for a pap smear, you can use this new at-home tool. So this new at-home version, there’s no speculum requirement. It’s just a long swab. And so it’s from a company called Teal Health. And the research that was published, along with the FDA approval, shows that this home version is actually just as effective as an in-office test.

And I want to clarify here that a traditional pap smear, they take some cells, and then they look at them under a microscope and see if there’s abnormalities. You can also have an HPV test done at the same time. That’s looking for specific strains that are indicative of you being at risk of HPV. So this test is just that HPV test, though doing an HPV test is shown to actually be slightly more effective than doing a traditional pap smear, anyway.

BENJI JONES: Because there’s such a tight link between HPV and cervical cancer.

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: Yes, that’s right. And so it’s specific high-risk strains of HPV. And most cases of cervical cancer are caused by HPV.

FLORA LICHTMAN: So it was approved by the FDA. When might I be able to use it?

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: Yeah. So Teal Health, the company that makes the swab, said that it’ll be available by prescription next month, first in California and then hopefully in other states as well. But it’s actually not yet covered through health insurance. Though, I do also want to note that while this kind of at-home procedure is being approved in the US, it’s been widely available in other countries, like Australia and Sweden.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Shoshannah, what else flew on your radar this week?

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: OK, so this next story is very much in the Shoshannah wheelhouse. This story is about dinosaurs. I have to admit that my main interest in dinosaurs is along the lines of like, when did birds first evolve? And like–

FLORA LICHTMAN: As a birder.

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: As a birder. I’m a bird person.

FLORA LICHTMAN: You only care about dinosaurs as a link to birds.

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: That is correct.

[LAUGHTER]

And so this week, there was a big new fossil find from the Field Museum in Chicago. So this new fossil that they found is an Archaeopteryx fossil. And these are dinosaurs that have feathers. And the cool thing about this new specimen, even though this is a really well-studied type of dinosaur, this fossil is super well preserved. A lot of fossils are really flattened. This one was preserved in three dimensions, which is really rare–

FLORA LICHTMAN: That’s awesome.

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: –for a fossil. But the most exciting part in my opinion– and also according to the researcher who was quoted in a bunch of articles– is that the way that the wings were positioned, you can actually see the full wingspan. And so you can see the imprints of tissue and even feathers. And so scientists were able to detect for the first time a second layer of feathers.

OK, so I’m going to explain what that means. So imagine the long arm bone of a bird. And so what they found is that unlike other dinosaurs, where the feathers just go from the tip to mid arm– imagine where your elbow would be– on this fossil, the feathers actually go all the way to where the wing connects with the body. And this is really significant because archeologists thought that this type of dinosaur had the potential to fly. But the fact that there are this second layer of feathers is similar to what modern birds that are able to fly have. So this just points more evidence that, actually, this is the first dinosaur that was able to fly, which is pretty cool.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Do we know how well it could fly? Is it soaring, or is it like a chicken, a giant chicken?

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: Yeah, so they actually call it a Jurassic chicken.

[LAUGHTER]

So it could fly, but not super duper well.

[INTRIGUING MUSIC]

FLORA LICHTMAN: Don’t go away– more stories after the break, including unpepper. You’ll find out what that means if you stay with us.

[RELAXING MUSIC]

Shoshannah, you have one more story for us, some food science?

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: Yes, yes. OK, so this one is about hot peppers, what makes peppers spicy or not spicy. So the spiciness of chili peppers comes from compounds called capsaicinoids. And when they measure chili pepper, they use something called the Scoville scale. If you’re into super hot peppers, you’re probably familiar with this.

But it’s an imperfect science because the Scoville scale, basically, they’re ranking how much of those capsaicinoids are in there, the things that make the peppers spicy. However, people will not necessarily rate peppers as being as spicy as the Scoville scale rating has.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Like there’s something that’s despising them?

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: Exactly. There’s something that the level of spiciness in them isn’t like a one to one of how you perceive it. So the ones that people ranked as less spicy despite having the same level of spiciness, they figured out that those pepper varieties had a bunch of these compounds called glucosides, which is just like a fancy name for molecules that contain glucose. So there’s three molecules. It’s basically a type of sugar. And so that’s counteracting the spiciness of the pepper. So they basically discovered anti spice. It’s the unpepper.

BENJI JONES: What? So the unpepper, can you package that up and make it into a shaker, like sprinkle it on your food?

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: Yes, so–

FLORA LICHTMAN: Like, I can go to every restaurant now?

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: That is ultimately part of the goal, I think. That’s a potential application. They just figured out these compounds. And the researchers don’t exactly how they work, how it interacts with the spiciness of the peppers. But yes, ideally, if you can isolate those compounds, you can shake it on food to make it less spicy and also manipulate peppers to be more or less spicy in a more precise way.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I can’t think of anything nerdier than going to a restaurant with your unpepper and being like, oh, I’ll just take this–

BENJI JONES: Oh my god.

FLORA LICHTMAN: –down a notch.

BENJI JONES: Horrible.

[LAUGHTER]

Horrible.

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: Look, It’s reducing food waste, OK? We’re saving the environment.

FLORA LICHTMAN: OK. Benji, I know you reported on this too– more exciting news for cicada stans, which I assume are all of us. Tell us about it.

BENJI JONES: The cicadas are back in the next few weeks. We will start to see another major emergence of these cicadas that only come up every so often. These are cicadas, Brood XIV, that have been underground for 17 years and are about to emerge. They’re going to be in Long Island. But they’re also going to be in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia. So there’s a large area over which these cicadas will be emerging, hopefully soon.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Here’s the thing that I don’t understand. They come out every 17 years. How do they know when to come out?

BENJI JONES: OK. So Flora, these are insects of mystery, and that is a big mystery. One theory is that they can count the years based on the flow of sap in the tree roots that they’re slurping up when they’re resting in the soil. So the young cicadas are basically attached to these roots underground before they emerge, and they’re slurping up the xylem fluid from the roots. That’s how they grow.

And as the seasons go by, the flow of sap changes. And so scientists think they can actually use that change in flow to count. And then they get the signal to emerge based on temperatures. And the other funny thing is that some of them don’t how to count properly and will emerge, like, four years early or four years later.

FLORA LICHTMAN: We all have friends like that, you know what I mean?

BENJI JONES: Completely, like the late sleepers, the annoying early morning people, or the late bloomers, whatever. I’m a late bloomer. But–

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: I’m so pumped, didn’t see last year’s brood. So yeah, I might have to take the Long Island Railroad and see some cicadas.

BENJI JONES: You should do it. We should go together.

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: Yes, field trip. Flora, you in?

FLORA LICHTMAN: Just send me pictures.

[LAUGHTER]

BENJI JONES: Wow. Wow, OK.

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: OK. So, Flora, I want to hear what story you’ve been obsessing about this week.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Well, I know we’ve been on the bird train this whole time, but there is just one more story that must be mentioned. Look, as we all can agree, flamingos are the most hardcore animal out there. And they are also often overlooked because they are pink. And that is not an assertion. That is a fact.

But the flamingo flock is feasting this week because scientists report in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they have finally cracked this longstanding mystery of flamingos, which is, how do they eat in that goofy way that they do? Can you guys picture what that looks like, a flamingo eating?

BENJI JONES: They kind of like, dip their head into the water. They’re sort of upside down. And then they’re just kind of moving their mouth up and down, right?

FLORA LICHTMAN: Yes, exactly. They’re upside down, and then their beak is chomping like a wind-up set of teeth. And what the researchers figured out by filming them and by creating, of course, a 3D-printed flamingo beak is that, of course, this action, this upside-down action with the shape of their beak and the chomping, creates vortices under the water that propels the brine shrimp or the algae or the seeds into their mouths, like underwater–

BENJI JONES: What?

FLORA LICHTMAN: Yeah, like a tiny little underwater vortices. And not only that, but also, they do this thing with their feet, where they’re, like, stomping in the water. And that also creates vortices that sort of just propels water into their mouth. So anyway, I had to share this flamingo news. I love flamingos. And you must see the video. It’s at sciencefriday.com/flamingo.

BENJI JONES: Yeah, I’m going to cosine on that video, especially the 3D-printed flamingo beak. It’s incredible, the things researchers do.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Thank you. That’s all I have to say to them. And thank you to you both for sharing these stories with us.

SHOSHANNAH BUXBAUM: Thanks, Flora.

BENJI JONES: Thanks for having me.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Benji Jones, environmental correspondent at Vox, based in New York City, and SciFri producer Shoshannah Buxbaum. On Monday, we are back with another episode of The Leap. This is a series I worked on with the Hypothesis Fund about scientists who are putting their reputations, their careers, and even their lives on the line for their work.

And in the next episode, we are taking you to the top of an erupting volcano. That’s on Monday’s podcast.

[INTRIGUING MUSIC]

And that is about all we have time for. Lots of folks helped to make this show happen, including–

SANDY ROBERTS: Sandy Roberts.

ROBIN KAZMIER: Robin Kazmier.

CHARLES BERGQUIST: Charles Bergquist,

GEORGE HARPER: George Harper. I’m Flora Lichtman. Thanks for listening.

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