Texas’ oldest wildlife refuge, the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, was about to grow from a modest 6,440 acres to a whopping 700,000 acres under Biden’s “America the Beautiful” initiative. The idea was simple: protect grasslands, save some birds, maybe not let everything die out. But the Trump administration swooped in and killed the plan in the name of “unleashing American energy.” Translation: prairie chickens don’t pay campaign donations.
Conservationists are furious, especially since this wasn’t some forced “land grab” like critics claimed—it was voluntary. If a landowner wanted to sell, great. If not, no one was prying the mesquite out of their hands. But hey, nothing says “freedom” like being told you can’t conserve your land because it might inconvenience oil and gas.
This is bad news for the lesser prairie-chicken, a bird that’s already lost 90% of its population since the ‘60s and just made the endangered species list in Texas and New Mexico. Naturally, Trump’s team also wants to strip its protections, because who needs biodiversity when you’ve got pipelines and drilling rights?
Meanwhile, local advocates were hoping the expansion would bring more hunting, fishing, tourism, and tax revenue. Instead, they get to watch grasslands dry up, aquifers collapse, and species vanish while politicians pat themselves on the back for “cutting red tape.”
So which will run out first in West Texas—the water, the wildlife, or the patience of people watching their land sacrificed for another oil rig?
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/08/13/muleshoe-wildlife-refuge-donald-trump-texas/
