DALLAS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The iconic sage grouse that once roamed the western U.S. plains in great numbers needs protection, a move that will still curtail some energy development, the U.S. Interior Department said on Friday.
The bird will not be listed under the Endangered Species Act, but the department will put special emphasis on preserving the chicken-sized bird on lands where oil companies want to drill and wind companies want to erect their massive turbines.
The bird which feeds off the sage brush in states such as Wyoming has lost about half of its habitat over the past several decades, with its numbers slashed by 90 percent to between 200,000 and 300,000.
Bob Abbey, director of the Bureau of Land Management, said the agency will review drilling permits that have already been approved.
"Certainly, we would be reviewing those applications with a lot more scrutiny in areas where we have determined they are major populations of sage grouse and as a result of that determination...we would likely attach some additional stipulations on that drilling," he said.
It was not immediately clear which projects will be affected, but efforts to protect the bird have already thrown some projects into uncertainty, including a 198-turbine, $600 million wind farm in Wyoming proposed by Horizon Wind Energy.
The Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States said it was concerned about how energy development would be affected but was relieved that a full listing of the bird was avoided.
"We're concerned that land managers will nevertheless implement this decision by introducing very restrictive policies that prevent companies from investing and creating high-paying jobs in local communities," the group said.
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he wanted to move ahead with energy development while working with the states and private landowners to ensure the sage grouse thrives.
POLITICAL FLAP?
Republicans, who have branded President Barack Obama's attempts to pass a climate change bill as a job killer, said efforts to protect the sage grouse was another example of a green agenda that was bad for workers.
"Wyoming is still left with a black cloud over our job market," said the state's U.S. senator, John Barrasso.
With an unemployment rate of 9.7 percent, the economy will be a politically charged issue in a congressional election year where Democrats are seen in trouble in many districts.
The bird did not attain full endangered status but as a candidate species, federal and state government agencies will be expected to work harder to protect its habitat, so industry could still face restrictions.
Wyoming had already taken steps to protect the bird in a bid to stave off an endangered species listing, which the sage grouse could still attain down the road.
The Bureau of Land Management in early January issued guidelines to protect the bird, which Wyoming officials and environmentalists say will effectively preclude wind power development in about 20 percent of the sprawling state.
According to National Geographic, the bird's range is spread over 11 western states but is concentrated in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Nevada.
(Editing by Jim Marshall and Rebekah Kebede)
Energy groups relieved sage grouse won't be listed
Mead Gruver, Associated Press Yahoo News 5 Mar 10;
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – An Interior Department announcement Friday that it won't list sage grouse as an endangered or threatened species opens the way for continued development of the West's wind energy and oil and gas industries.
Those industries will still face scrutiny in sage grouse habitat but much less so than if the bird were listed.
The government concluded that listing the chicken-sized brown bird as threatened or endangered is warranted but precluded by higher priorities — other species considered in greater danger.
But Interior will classify the bird among species that are candidates for federal protection, which are assigned a priority number between one and 12. The sage grouse has been given an eight, putting it two-thirds of the way down the scale as a priority for federal protection.
Sage grouse have experienced a 90 percent decline in their numbers and a 50 percent decline in their sagebrush habitat from a century ago, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at a news conference.
But the bird populations have been relatively stable over the last decade thanks to efforts by states such as Wyoming, Idaho and Montana to protect the species and its habitat, he said.
"Frankly, it is the states in the Western part of the United States that have developed the right kind of strategies to confront this challenge," Salazar said.
Sage grouse inhabit large portions of Wyoming, Nevada, Montana, Oregon and Idaho, and smaller areas of Colorado, Utah, California, Washington, South Dakota, North Dakota and western Canada.
Especially in Wyoming, large areas of sage grouse habitat also are prime spots for natural gas development that has boomed in recent years. In Nevada, the birds are challenged by an invasive species, cheatgrass, which is prone to frequent wildfires that burn up native sagebrush.
Wyoming, home to an estimated one-half of North America's sage grouse, has been mapping the bird's habitat, studying it and taking other steps to better understand how to protect the species and avoid an endangered listing — efforts that Gov. Dave Freudenthal said have paid off.
"The candidate listing gives us a fighting chance, while an endangered or threatened listing would have taken the wind out of our sails," he said in a release.
Some environmentalists were less pleased.
The finding shows the government is willing to protect sage grouse but not willing to do what's necessary, said Jon Marvel, executive director of the Hailey, Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project.
"None of the actions proposed to date are mandatory, and that undermines the commitment for improving conditions for sage grouse," Marvel said.
Friday's announcement results from a lawsuit that Western Watersheds filed in 2006. A federal judge in Boise, Idaho, ruled the following year that political pressure tainted an earlier decision not to list the sage grouse.
The finding effectively ends the group's lawsuit, Marvel said.
Other groups expressing disappointment included the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and the American Bird Conservancy.
Laurie Milford, executive director of the Wyoming Outdoor Council, said the finding "makes a certain amount of sense," while Frank Gill, president and CEO of the National Audubon Society, said Interior is "on the right path."
The Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States worries the finding could inhibit oil and gas development on public lands in the West, said the group's director of government affairs, Kathleen Sgamma.
"But it appears that Interior plans to balance implementation so that restrictions on energy development do not apply with a broad brush across the entire region," she said.
The Interior Department recognizes the need to develop the nation's energy resources, said Assistant Interior Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks Tom Strickland.
"We know that without good planning, energy activities can impact the sage grouse," he said. "The emphasis here is on smart from the start. We plan in advance."
For the wind energy industry, sage grouse are a concern because the birds don't nest near tall structures such as wind turbines and power lines for fear they could be perches for eagles and other predators.
The Interior announcement is a relief and offers more certainty for wind power, said Craig Cox, executive director of the Interwest Energy Alliance, a wind energy industry group.
"I do hope that as we gain more experience with the impact of wind on sage grouse, that we can develop plans accordingly," Cox added.
The oil and gas industry has been backing important sage grouse research and will continue to do that to help ensure that the species isn't listed, said Cheryl Sorenson, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming.
"For us, it's not like, `Whew, we've won one.' It's like, `OK, we need to keep rolling on this,'" Sorenson said.
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Associated Press Writer Todd Dvorak contributed to this report from Boise, Idaho.
US stops short of protection for western sage grouse
Yahoo News 5 Mar 10;
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US officials Friday stopped short of giving endangered species status to the sage grouse, an iconic bird that is at the center of a dispute over oil drilling in the western United States.
The Interior Department said the bird merits protection but will not receive it for now because of a backlog of other species which are a higher priority, a move that is expected to allow oil drilling to continue.
The agency "will expand efforts with state, local and tribal partners to map lands that are vital to the survival of the greater sage grouse... while guiding and managing new conventional and renewable energy projects to reduce impacts on the species," a statement from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said.
"The sage grouse's decline reflects the extent to which open land in the West has been developed in the last century," Salazar said.
"We must find common-sense ways of protecting, restoring and reconnecting the Western lands that are most important to the species' survival while responsibly developing much-needed energy resources."
Environmentalists lamented the decision.
"These magnificent birds need Endangered Species Act protection now," said Michael Connor, California Director for Western Watersheds Project.
"Without this added protection the Mona Basin sage grouse will continue to decline."
Sage grouse have dwindled to about half of their historic range due to habitat destruction, and some scientists warn that the birds could disappear within the next 100 years or less.
The Environmental Defense Fund said the decision "is a wake-up call for landowners, industry, and conservationists to work together to reverse the decline of the bird and the land it inhabits."
"An endangered species listing is no one's first choice as a tool to fix broken landscapes," said Ted Toombs, a spokesman for the fund. "It is really a last resort option to keep species from going extinct.
"The first, best option to protect species is for conservationists, farmers, ranchers, energy companies, the recreation industry, and other stakeholders to work together on habitat conservation and restoration, so that an endangered species listing can be avoided."
The greater sage grouse currently live in only 11 western states: California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
Oil and gas companies have said a designation could freeze drilling in areas of Wyoming and other states that are also sage grouse habitat.