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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 103 / Tuesday, June 1, 2021 / Proposed Rules
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across the range of the lesser prairiechicken.
Roads and Electrical Distribution Lines Roads and distribution power lines are linear features on the landscape that contribute to loss and fragmentation of lesser prairie-chicken habitat and fragment populations as a result of behavioral avoidance. Lesser prairiechickens are less likely to use areas close to roads Plumb et al. 2019, entire;
Sullins et al. 2019, entire. Additionally, roads contribute to lek abandonment when they disrupt important habitat features such as affecting auditory or visual communication associated with lek sites Crawford and Bolen 1976b, p.
239. Some mammal species that prey on lesser prairie-chicken, such as red fox Vulpes vulpes, raccoons Procyon lotor, and striped skunks Mephitis mephitis, have greatly increased their distribution by dispersing along roads Forman and Alexander 1998, p. 212;
Forman 2000, p. 33; Frey and Conover 2006, pp. 11141115.
Traffic noise from roads may indirectly impact lesser prairie-chicken.
Because lesser prairie-chicken depend on acoustical signals to attract females to leks, noise from roads, oil and gas development, wind turbines, and similar human activity may interfere with mating displays, influencing female attendance at lek sites and causing young males not to be drawn to the leks. Within a relatively short period, leks can become inactive due to a lack of recruitment of new males to the display grounds. For further discussion on noise, please see Influence of Anthropogenic Noise.
Depending on the traffic volume and associated disturbances, roads also may limit lesser prairie-chicken dispersal abilities. Lesser prairie-chickens avoid areas of usable habitat near roads Pruett et al. 2009, pp. 1256, 1258; Plumb et al.
2019, entire and in areas where road densities are high Sullins et al. 2019, p.
8. Lesser prairie-chickens are thought to avoid major roads due to disturbance caused by traffic volume and perhaps to avoid exposure to predators that may use roads as travel corridors. However, the extent to which roads constitute a significant obstacle to lesser prairiechicken movement and space use is largely dependent upon the local landscape composition and characteristics of the road itself.
Local electrical distribution lines are usually much shorter in height than transmission lines but can still contribute to habitat fragmentation through similar mechanisms as other vertical features when erected above ground. Distribution lines are similar to
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transmission lines with the exception to height of poles and electrical power carried through the line. In addition to habitat loss and fragmentation, electrical power lines can directly affect prairie grouse by posing a collision hazard Leopold 1933, p. 353; Connelly et al.
2000, p. 974. There were no datasets available to quantify the total impact of distribution lines on the landscape for the lesser prairie-chicken. Although distribution lines are a significant landscape feature throughout the Great Plains with potential to affect lesser prairie-chicken habitat, after reviewing all available information, we were unable to develop a method to quantitatively incorporate the occurrence of distribution lines into our geospatial analysis.
As part of our geospatial analysis, we estimated the area impacted by direct and indirect habitat loss due to roads Service 2021, Appendix B, Part 2.
These calculations of the current analysis area do not include historical impacts of loss; thus, it likely underestimates the historical effect of roads on rangewide habitat loss for the lesser prairie-chicken. The results indicate that the total areas of grassland that have been directly and indirectly impacted by roads within the analysis area for the lesser prairie-chicken are:
about 17 percent of the total area in the Short-Grass/CRP Ecoregion; about 14
percent of the total area in the Sand Sagebrush Ecoregion; about 20 percent of the total area in the Mixed-Grass Ecoregion; and about 19 percent of the total area in the Shinnery Oak Ecoregion. Rangewide, we estimate about 3,996,000 ac 1,617,000 ha of grassland have been impacted by roads, representing about 18 percent of the total analysis area Service 2021, Appendix E, Figure E.6. We did not have adequate spatial data to evaluate habitat loss caused solely by power lines, but much of the existing impacts of power lines occur within the impacts caused by roads. Power lines that fall outside the existing impacts of roads would represent additional impacts for the lesser prairie-chicken that are not quantified in our geospatial analysis.
Development of roads and electrical distribution lines directly removes habitat that supports lesser prairiechicken, and the effects of the development extend past the immediate footprint of the development, further impacting habitat and altering behavior of lesser prairie-chicken throughout both the Northern and the Southern DPSs. These activities have resulted in decreases in population resiliency and species redundancy.

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Other Factors Livestock Grazing Grazing has long been an ecological driving force throughout the ecosystems of the Great Plains Stebbins 1981, p.
84, and much of the untilled grasslands within the range of the lesser prairiechicken is currently grazed by livestock and other animals. Historically, the interaction of fire, drought, prairie dogs Cynomys ludovicianus, and large ungulate grazers created and maintained distinctive plant communities in the Western Great Plains, resulting in a mosaic of vegetation structure and composition that sustained lesser prairie-chicken and other grassland bird populations Derner et al. 2009, p. 112.
As such, grazing by domestic livestock is not inherently detrimental to lesser prairie-chicken management and, in many cases, is needed to maintain appropriate vegetative structure.
However, grazing practices that tend to result in overutilization of forage and decreasing vegetation heterogeneity can produce habitat conditions that differ in significant ways from the historical grassland mosaic; these incompatible practices alter the vegetation structure and composition and degrade the quality of habitat for the lesser prairiechicken. The more heavily altered conditions are the least valuable for the lesser prairie-chicken Jackson and DeArment 1963 p. 733; Davis et al.
1979, pp. 56, 116; Taylor and Guthery 1980a, p. 2; Bidwell and Peoples 1991, pp. 12. In some cases, these alterations can result in areas that do not contain the biological components necessary to support the lesser prairie-chicken.
Where grazing regimes leave limited residual cover in the spring, protection of lesser prairie-chicken nests may be inadequate, and desirable food resources can be scarce Bent 1932, p.
280; Cannon and Knopf 1980, pp. 73
74; Crawford 1980, p. 3; Kraft 2016, pp.
1921. Because lesser prairie-chicken depend on mediumand tall-grass species for nesting, concealment, and thermal cover that are also preferentially grazed by cattle, these plant species needed by lesser prairie-chicken can easily be reduced or eliminated by cattle grazing, particularly in regions of low rainfall Hamerstrom and Hamerstrom 1961, p. 290. In addition, when grasslands are in a deteriorated condition due to incompatible grazing and overutilization, the soils have less water-holding capacity Blanco and Lal 2010, p. 9, and the availability of succulent vegetation and insects used by lesser prairie-chicken chicks is reduced. However, grazing can be beneficial to the lesser prairie-chicken
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