Endangered Animal Species in Texas

As our great State of Texas continues to grow and change, the birds, bees, fish and frogs must also grow and change.

Sometimes the animal adapts to its new surroundings. Pigeons, rats, cats, mice and cockroaches love our cities. They do better when we are around.

Sometimes the animal must leave because it hates civilization. We are losing the Greater Prairie-Chicken and the Lesser Prairie chicken because they don't like farms. The Greater Prairie-Chicken is on my Texas list, but in truth, it doesn't live here in Texas anymore. There are several states north of us that still have habitat to support the Greater Prairie-Chicken, but that's it for America. Once we develop that land, the Greater Prairie-Chicken will be gone. As for the Lesser Prairie-Chicken, it now has a much smaller habitat than the Greater Prairie-Chicken, but a good part of that habitat is in Texas.

Federally, the Greater Prairie-Chicken is endangered and the Lesser Prairie-Chicken is threatened. On the Texas list the Greater Prairie Chicken is endangered, and the Lesser Prairie-Chicken is not on the endangered or the threatened list. Despite the Texas lists, I feel that the Lesser Prairie-Chicken will likely be extinct in America before the Greater Prairie-Chicken.

Sometimes animals become extinct in an area because other animals push them out. If one species has a population explosion, that species will need more land, more food, more elbow room. The other animals have to adjust, move, or die out. This is why it is very dangerous to introduce a new animal or plant to Texas. The new can force out the old.

The requirements for being listed on the Endangered Species of Texas list are very simple. If that animal is in danger of extinction within the confines of the State of Texas, then it makes the list. So please remember that being extinct in Texas does not necessarily mean extinct in general.

Here is the list of Endangered Species in Texas

Greater long-nosed bats
Mexican long-nosed bats.
West Indian manatee
Black right whale
Blue whale
Finback whale
Sperm whale
Black-footed ferret
Jaguar
Jaguarundi
Ocelot
Gray wolf
Red Wolf
Peregrine Falcon
American Falcon
Northern Aplomado falcon
Eskimo curlew
Interior least tern
Attwater's greater prairie-chicken
Whooping crane
Eastern brown pelican
Ivory-billed woodpecker
Red cockaded woodpecker
Southwestern willow flycatcher
Black-capped vireo
Bachman's warblers
Golden-cheeked warbler
Atlantic hawksbill turtle
Leatherback turtle
Kemp'sRidley turtle
Barton Springs salamanders
Texas blind salamanders
Houston toad
Comanche Springs and Leon Springs pupfishes
Big Bend, Clear Creek, Pecos and San Marcos gambusias
Rio Grande silvery minnow
Fountain darter
Peck's cave amphipod
Ouachita rock pocketbook mussel