PORTLAND, Ore.— In response to a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and Bird Alliance of Oregon, a federal judge found that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2022 determination that the streaked horned lark is threatened and not endangered is unlawful. The court ordered the Service to reconsider within one year whether the lark warrants endangered species protections.

Once a common species in the prairies of Puget Sound and the Willamette Valley, the lark has been reduced to very small, scattered populations by urbanization and agricultural conversion of their habitat. The birds are at immediate risk of extinction.

“I’m thrilled the court recognized that the Fish and Wildlife Service shortchanged these stunning larks by dismissing how their small populations clearly increase extinction risk,” said Ryan Shannon, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “I hope these striking little birds will get the protections they so desperately need.”

The court found that the Service failed to consider how the lark’s chance of survival is harmed by small isolated populations, which result in inbreeding and increase the likelihood that groups will be wiped out by weather or other chance events. Many of the larks’ remaining populations are dangerously small, particularly in South Puget Sound and on the Washington coast.

“This court decision is welcome and provides some hope for this imperiled species that is, unfortunately, quickly moving towards extinction,” said Joe Liebezeit, statewide conservation director for the Bird Alliance of Oregon. “The Service now has no excuse but to uplist the streaked horned lark from threatened to endangered.”

Larks are unique because they need open ground created by floods and fire that has largely disappeared. In the absence of natural short-grass prairie habitats, the birds are now primarily found in anthropogenic ones, including grass seed fields, airports and bombing ranges on Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Based on the threatened listing, the Service issued a rule exempting all agricultural activities, including those clearly harmful to the larks. Examples include converting grass seed fields to other crops that don’t support the birds or mowing when the larks are nesting. An endangered listing would remove such exemptions and ensure that these larks have the full protections they need to survive into the future.

This lawsuit marks the culmination of years of work by the groups to protect the lark, beginning in 2002 when the Center and other organizations first asked the Service to protect the species. In a 2019 lawsuit, the Center successfully challenged the Service’s decision to list the lark as threatened but was forced to go back to court after the Service doubled down on its decision in 2022.

Background

Streaked horned larks are small, ground-dwelling songbirds with conspicuous feather tufts, or “horns,” on their heads. Generally pale brown with yellow washes in the male’s face, adults have a black bib, black whisker marks and black tail feathers with white margins.

Formerly a common nesting species in prairies west of the Cascade Mountains from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon, the larks were so abundant around Puget Sound that they were considered a nuisance by turn-of-the-century golfers.

With the conversion of extensive prairies in the Willamette Valley and Puget Sound Lowlands to agricultural fields, floodplain control and cities, the larks lost most of their habitat. They’ve now dwindled to an estimated 1,170 to 1,610 birds, and possibly far fewer. They are part of a growing list of species that are imperiled by loss of prairies in the Willamette Valley and Puget Trough to urban and agricultural sprawl.