Birds in the News

November 10, 2004

Plan May Keep Bird Off Endangered List

By FELICITY BARRINGER

ASHINGTON, Nov. 9 - An initiative by the Bureau of Land Management to
conserve the habitat of the northern sage grouse is complicating efforts to earn the
bird designation as an endangered species.

The bird is a signature species of the West whose range overlaps with oil and
gas deposits and grazing lands throughout the Rocky Mountain states. The
initiative, likely to be unveiled next week by the bureau, is outlined in a series
of internal documents.

The effort to get the bird listed is being considered by a sister agency in
the Interior Department, the Fish and Wildlife Service, which must make its
decision by Dec. 29. Such a designation could lead to new restrictions on energy
exploration and grazing on lands where the birds live.

In a second action touching on the same arid landscape, the Fish and Wildlife
Service announced in the Federal Register on Tuesday that it was rejecting a
petition to give endangered status to the white-tailed prairie dog. The
scientific evidence, it said, did not warrant such action.

A decision by the service to list either the sage grouse or the prairie dog
as endangered could lead to new and potentially more onerous and expensive
regulation of energy exploration and drilling across Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and
Montana - perhaps including more restrictions on the number of new wells, the
number of days drilling is permitted, or both.

The prairie-dog petition was rejected relatively early in the process, but
the likelihood that the sage grouse could be given endangered status grew in
June with the release of a pessimistic scientific assessment by the Western
Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

That group's analysis concluded, "we are not optimistic about the future of
sage grouse because of long-term population declines coupled with the continued
loss and degradation of habitat and other factors," like the impact of the
West Nile virus.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management, which supervises more than half the
land where sage grouse roam, is starting to highlight existing state and
local conservation efforts and to conserve the bird's habitat through its own
land-use planning process.

An internal memorandum discussing the guidance that the bureau is preparing
for its field offices said that if the sage grouse was listed as endangered,
"sage grouse management would then be conducted under a defined regulatory
process that could shift the emphasis away from cooperative conservation efforts.
This could affect a wide scope of activities conducted or authorized by the
B.L.M."

If the sage grouse were listed, the ultimate decisions on protecting the bird
would largely shift from states to the Interior Department, which administers
a regulatory regimen prescribed by the Endangered Species Act.

Populations of the sage grouse have declined in fits and starts over the past
30 years, and have been the focus of state conservation efforts in states
including Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada and South Dakota. The range
of the sagebrush within which they live covers more than 185,000 square miles
across the West.

The birds are shy and nondescript, except during the mating rituals that take
place near their leks, or courtship and mating areas. During courtship, the
birds fluff themselves out and strut around the lek to entice their mates.

The June report by the Western wildlife agencies' association indicated there
was a total population of 50,000 male birds in 2003, and said that, after
rapid declines from the 1960's to the 1980's, the population had "tended to
stabilize."

But it also noted, "although there are areas that presently could be
considered population strongholds, some populations are still declining rather
precipitously in various portions of the species range."

In an interview Tuesday, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton was neutral when
asked how she regarded listing the bird as endangered. "There are lots of
efforts being made to put in place good strong conservation measures," Ms. Norton
said. "Ultimately, it will require deciding whether those measures are
sufficient.

"You have to make a threshold determination whether the species is on a track
that would usually cause it to be listed on the endangered species list," she
added. "If that's true, then you look at the conservation efforts to see if
they are enough to move the decision in the opposite direction."

Kathleen Clarke, the Bureau of Land Management director, said in an interview
that her office would provide the Fish and Wildlife Service with not just
prospective conservation plans but a compilation of the state and local
conservation efforts undertaken previously.

Asked if her strategy would render moot the listing of the bird as an
endangered species, she said, "I'm not going to speculate. Fish and Wildlife has to
apply their process - it is their decision to make. We are working hard to make
very sure they are clear about what we have done and are committed to doing."

But Mark Salvo, a specialist on the issue for the American Lands Alliance,
which had petitioned to list the sage grouse as endangered, said, "Given
B.L.M.'s track record and the current administration's goals for public land, it
would be a big mistake to rely on this B.L.M. plan to restore the species."

He added, "I don't think there's any question that the B.L.M. has produced
this plan to try to head off a listing," and noted that the June report "painted
a fairly grim picture of sage grouse habitat."

Dru Bower, a vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said
that the state and local conservation efforts should not be underestimated. And
Jeff Eisenberg, an executive of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said
"for conservation to succeed and be effective, you need to win the hearts and
minds of the people who live on the land."

The rejection of the prairie-dog petition drew a sharp response from Erin
Robertson of The Center for Native Ecosystems, which had led the effort for the
listing. "The Department of Interior had reams of documents showing the prairie
dog is in serious trouble," Ms. Robertson said. "It's ludicrous for them to
claim lack of information."