In its April 28 edition, the Great Falls Tribune reported that the sage grouse, an enduring symbol of the West, is experiencing significant population declines.
As a result, government land managers, with help from ranchers and conservation groups, are committing tens of millions of dollars and rewriting dozens of management plans to protect habitat where the birds still thrive, Tribune staff writer Karl Puckett reported.
Sweeping initiatives are under way on both private and public lands in 11 states including Montana that aim to increase grouse populations and avert the listing of the bird as a threatened or endangered species. Experts say this would bring tougher restrictions on grazing and energy development. The conservation initiatives cover 186 million acres of public and private sage grouse habitat in the West.
Spotted owl of the West?
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to revisit a listing decision on the birds in 2015.
If the sage grouse is listed as endangered or threatened, a University of Montana expert told the newspaper that restrictions on both energy extraction and grazing likely would follow. This would create the possibility that the prairie bird will become the northern spotted owl of the West, pitting conservation and development interests in messy legal and political fights, according to Puckett.
Montana has about 18 percent of the estimated population of 200,000 sage grouse, second only to Wyoming.
The BLM is heading efforts on land it manages, rewriting almost 100 management plans across the West to improve protections. The federal agency manages about 45 percent of the sage grouse habitat.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service or NRCS is heading the initiatives on private land, where 39 percent of sage grouse are found.
In 2010 and 2011, $115 million in Farm Bill money was appropriated for the NRCS’ national sage grouse conservation initiative in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, eastern California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming.
The agency launched the program because listing would threaten grazing on agricultural lands.
Another $40 million has been set aside so far in 2012. Private groups supporting the work have chipped in another $60 million.
Energy development a factor
Depending on the state, energy development, conversion of native sage to farm ground, livestock grazing, urbanization and disease are factors in the decline of sage grouse.
Scientists told the Great Falls newspaper that the loss of habitat to tillage and energy development are the biggest threats in Montana.
Already in Wyoming, 12 years of coalbed methane gas development in the Powder River basin coincided with a 79 percent decline in sage grouse population, with energy development prompting birds to abandon traditional habitat, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Montana saw 25,351 acres of sagebrush converted to tilled agriculture between 2005 and 2009, according to the USFWS.
BLM officials told the Tribune that oil development and its impact on sage grouse will be addressed in the agency’s plan revisions.
