Sage Grouse Doesn't Merit Protected Lists, U.S. Finds
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: January 8, 2005
The Fish and Wildlife Service announced Friday that the sage grouse, a ground-dwelling bird of the arid West, will not be placed on the lists of species requiring special protection.
The grouse's numbers have declined, sporadically, for the last century.
A listing for special protection often requires businesses whose activities could harm the habitat of a plant or animal to take sometimes costly measures to minimize their impact. The wide range of the sage grouse, which can be found in 11 Western states, meant that listing it could have cost ranchers and oil and natural gas companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost time or minimized access to land.
The decision, which followed the recommendation of an internal group of scientists and managers, rested in part on the idea that private-public conservation efforts, like those recently expanded by the Bureau of Land Management, would help restore and maintain existing grouse populations.
But conservation groups said voluntary efforts could not be depended on to protect the bird.
Those efforts, said Mark Salvo, the executive director of the Sagebrush Sea Campaign, a conservation group, were devised ''to avoid listing the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act more than recover the species from the threat of extinction.''
''Local conservation plans are mostly window dressing and are insufficient to save the grouse,'' Mr. Salvo said.
Dianne Hoppe, the chairwoman of the Partnership for the West, a coalition of Western businesses, including many energy companies, said in a statement Friday: ''Federal agencies, state agencies, counties, municipalities, conservation groups and many private-sector stakeholders are together spending tens of millions of dollars to help conserve sage grouse and its habitat. What are some of these so-called environmental groups bringing to the conservation table? Little beyond a never-ending stream of destructive and costly lawsuits.''
Last year, the Fish and Wildlife Service offered an interim opinion indicating that the sage grouse might be listed as threatened or endangered, a finding that often means the species involved is likely to be put on one of these lists. After that finding, industry lobbyists mobilized with both Interior Department political appointees and state and federal officials, trying to block the listing, and at least one political appointee pushed scientists to include industry-supported studies in their analysis.