{"id":26894,"date":"2015-09-23T08:08:24","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T15:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/sage-grouse-plan-aims-for-industry-wildlife-balance\/"},"modified":"2015-09-23T08:08:24","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T15:08:24","slug":"sage-grouse-plan-aims-for-industry-wildlife-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/sage-grouse-plan-aims-for-industry-wildlife-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"Sage grouse plan aims for industry, wildlife balance"},"content":{"rendered":"

BILLINGS, Mont.<\/strong> \u2014 A cooperative effort to save a ground-dwelling bird has diverted it from possible extinction, federal officials declared Tuesday, as they sought to safeguard the habitat of a declining species while maintaining key pieces of the American West\u2019s economy \u2014 oil and gas drilling and ranching.<\/p>\n

The Obama administration said the greater sage grouse does not require Endangered Species Act protections, walking a fine line with its assertion that economic development and preservation can coexist across the bird\u2019s 11-state range.<\/p>\n

But critics from each side of the political spectrum quickly denounced the move, concentrating on new plans signed in conjunction with the decision that will guide the use of 67 million acres of public lands.<\/p>\n

Industry representatives and some Republicans claim the plans would unnecessarily lock up land from drilling, mining and other uses. Wildlife advocates countered that loopholes in those plans still would allow drilling, further threatening the chicken-sized grouse.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s announcement reversed a 2010 finding that the bird was headed toward possible extinction as development cut into its vast but shrinking sagebrush habitat ranging from California to the Dakotas.<\/p>\n

Flanked by the governors of Wyoming, Montana, Nevada and Colorado, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said at an event near Denver that a massive five-year effort to keep the bird off the endangered and threatened species list had paid off. That includes commitments of more than $750 million from government and outside interest groups to buy up conservation easements and restore the bird\u2019s range.<\/p>\n

Jewell called it \u201cthe largest, most complex land conservation effort\u201d in U.S. history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does mean a brighter future for one amazing, scrappy bird,\u201d Jewell said at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge.<\/p>\n

The government will provide some level of habitat protections on most federal lands in the grouse\u2019s range, including 12 million acres where strict oil and gas limits will be enforced, Jewell said. The federal holdings make up more than a third of the animal\u2019s total range and do not include millions of acres of private land that will be restored or protected, agency officials said.<\/p>\n

The species once numbered an estimated 16 million birds. Over the last century, they lost roughly half their habitat to development, livestock grazing and an invasive grass that\u2019s encouraging wildfires in the Great Basin of Nevada and adjoining states. An estimated 200,000 to 500,000 birds now occupy sagebrush habitat spanning 11 states.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2010 declared the species to be in precipitous decline. Under a court settlement with the group WildEarth Guardians, Fish and Wildlife faced a Sept. 30 deadline to decide the bird\u2019s status.<\/p>\n

Criticism of the administration had been brewing for months, as the deadline approached and drafts of the land-use plans emerged.<\/p>\n

Erik Molvar with WildEarth Guardians said Interior Department officials had turned an opportunity to help the grouse into \u201can epic conservation failure.\u201d He said exceptions, modifications and waivers within the land-use plans mean protections could evaporate with the stroke of a pen.<\/p>\n

Republicans cast the issue as evidence of endangered-species laws run amok. Congress last year voted to block Fish and Wildlife from spending money on efforts to change the bird\u2019s legal status.<\/p>\n

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop said the decision on grouse was a \u201ccynical ploy\u201d intended to mask the fact that the Obama administration was imposing limits on development across the West.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not be fooled,\u201d the Utah Republican said in a statement. \u201cThe Obama administration\u2019s oppressive land management plan is the same thing as a listing\u201d under the Endangered Species Act.<\/p>\n

Jewell said the strictest development rules don\u2019t apply to 90 percent of lands with \u201cmedium or high potential\u201d to produce oil and gas.<\/p>\n

At the center of the fracas has been Wyoming, home to roughly 40 percent of the bird\u2019s population and a hub of fossil fuel development, with huge potential for wind energy and uranium mines.<\/p>\n

Efforts to avoid protections there have resulted in a significant impact: No drilling may take place near vital sage grouse breeding grounds during nesting season and oil and gas wells in core habitat must be clustered together. Other states have adopted similar plans.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also has worked with ranchers to improve habitat by removing fences, uprooting invasive trees and buying conservation easements to keep the land from being altered.<\/p>\n

Nevada rancher Duane Coombs said a more trustful relationship between residents of Western states and Washington helped make those measures possible.<\/p>\n

He said during Tuesday\u2019s event that although he inherited his father\u2019s distrust of the federal government, he raised his daughter to help him tie markers on ranch fences to keep sage grouse from flying into them and getting killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sage grouse was going to be the spotted owl for the livestock grazing industry,\u201d he said, referring to federal wildlife protections approved 25 years ago that greatly impeded the logging industry. \u201cYou know, we saw the way the spotted owl, the impact that that had on the timber industry in the 80s. And that was the fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Gruver reported from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Associated Press writers Dan Elliott and P. Solomon Banda in Commerce City, Colorado, and Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BILLINGS, Mont. \u2014 A cooperative effort to save a ground-dwelling bird has diverted it from possible extinction, federal officials declared Tuesday, as they sought to safeguard the habitat of a declining species while maintaining key pieces of the American West\u2019s economy \u2014 oil and gas drilling and ranching. The Obama administration said the greater sage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-26894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26894"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=26894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}