Endangered Texas Oil Field Bird Shows Peril Protection Law Faces

The sagebrush and scrubby shin oak of the oil-rich Texas Permian Basin that give shelter to the endangered lesser prairie-chicken are disappearing, plowed under by farms, intense oil and gas development, and wind power projects.

Kirk Williams, who grows wine grapes in the sand hills of the south plains on property that has been in his family for more than a century, is one of the few landowners in Yoakum County, Texas, who has included parts of his ranch in a conservation bank designed to protect the endangered grouse.

“We have a history of conservation, and it ...