Groups Seek to Protect Sage-Grouse as Federal Government Reconsiders ESA Listing

Photo: USFWS

Many federal agencies, states, conservation organizations and businesses are making voluntary efforts to preserve the Greater Sage-Grouse and its habitat to preclude the need for federal listing of the species. To limit the impact of energy development on sage grouse, two conservation groups this week petitioned the government to impose new drilling restrictions. Currently, companies cannot drill within a quarter-mile of sage grouse breeding areas. The petition by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and North American Grouse Partnership asks that the rule be extended to two miles. In Wyoming, the Bureau of Land Management is considering sage grouse protections on 200,000–400,000 acres in the Powder River Basin, the site of extensive drilling operations.

Despite these efforts, listing of the Greater Sage-Grouse may be a foregone conclusion. In December 2007, a federal judge overturned a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decision that denied Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection for the species, forcing the agency to initiate a new status review and listing procedure. In 2005, FWS had decided that listing was not warranted, although sage grouse numbers had fallen from historic highs of around two million to a few hundred thousand today. In overturning the decision, the judge cited serious flaws in the agency’s conduct, particularly the intervention of former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Julie MacDonald, who altered biologists’ reports (Bird Calls Vol. 12, No. 1) that supported listing the species.

In many respects, the situation for the Greater Sage-Grouse appears to be getting worse. In the last few years, millions of acres of its habitat have burned up in brush fires due the invasion of highly flammable cheatgrass, West Nile virus has decimated populations, and energy development has expanded exponentially in much of the best remaining sage-grouse habitat. FWS is now planning on releasing a final listing decision by the end of this year.

ABC’s Dan Casey, Northern Rockies Bird Conservation Regional Coordinator, commented, “The fact that listing of the Greater Sage-Grouse has been given serious consideration should tell us that our sagebrush ecosystems are in trouble. The entire suite of birds that depends on this habitat is at risk if we do not act now to restore a range of natural conditions throughout Western sage-dominated landscapes.”

Drilling on Roan Plateau Moving Ahead

In March 2008, BLM gave the go-ahead to drill for gas on the Roan Plateau, despite the protests of environmentalists, hunters, fishermen, and landowners. The Roan Plateau encompasses 115 square miles of pristine wilderness in Colorado, and is home to many mammal and bird species, including the Greater Sage-Grouse. The plateau is also one of the largest untapped natural gas reservoirs in the continental United States (Bird Calls Vol. 11, No. 3).

BLM rejected a compromise plan proposed by Colorado Governor, Bill Ritter, to develop gas reserves on the plateau in a low-impact manner that incorporates environmental safeguards, such as expanding the size of four wildlife protection zones, reducing the areas permitted for surface drilling, using existing roads instead of allowing new ones, and phasing in oil leases over several years instead of leasing all the land at once, as the BLM has proposed.

Hoping to block BLM’s decision, Colorado legislators re-introduced the compromise bill into Congress in April, with the backing of conservation groups and sportsmen.