Interior Withdraws Listing for Sage Grouse in Nevada and California

Federal protections are no longer needed for a unique population of sage grouse along the Nevada-California border thanks to millions of dollars spent to conserve its sage-steppe habitat, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell will announce this afternoon, according to a Fish and Wildlife Service official.

Jewell will join Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) in Reno to announce the department's decision to withdraw a proposed "threatened" listing for the bi-state sage grouse, a small, distinct population that has been breeding separately from other sage grouse for thousands of years.

The agency will also withdraw its proposal to designate 1.8 million acres of mostly federal land as critical habitat. Protections were firstproposedin October 2013 due to habitat threats from invasive species, changing wildfire patterns, the encroachment of conifer trees, grazing, and infrastructure development.

The decision was hailed by ranching advocates and sportsmen's conservation groups but criticized by other wildlife advocates who said it flouted the best availablescienceand relies on incomplete federal land-use plans.

Today's decision only affects the bi-state grouse, whose numbers have held relatively steady at about 5,000 over the past decade. Fish and Wildlife in September will decide separately whether Endangered Species Act protections are needed for greater sage grouse, which number in the hundreds of thousands and roam across 11 Western states.

Fish and Wildlife in 2010 said the bi-state grouse warranted ESA protection due to threats from invasive cheatgrass and medusahead rye and the encroachment of pinyon and juniper trees that act as straws sucking up scarce water and provide perches for sage grouse predators, among other threats.

The grouse was named a "candidate" species -- lacking federal protections -- due to higher listing priorities for other species. However, FWS in 2011 signed a sweeping settlement with environmental groups that set a deadline this month for deciding whether to give the grouse full protections.

Since then, federal agencies and conservation partners have mounted a furious push to bolster protections on the bird's 4.5 million acres of high-desert sagebrush.

The Agriculture and Interior departments last June announced $32 million in federal funds would be invested over the next decade, much of it dedicated to securing conservation easements on private lands that provide key water and forage for newly hatched sage grouse chicks. Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service today said it has enrolled 7,300 acres of key habitat in perpetual conservation easements with an additional 4,500 acres in progress.

NRCS has also helped ranchers restore 3,830 acres of sagebrush steppe through removal of encroaching conifers, with an additional 1,620 acres scheduled to be completed by the end of 2015.

The Forest Service this summer is slated to begin treatments to improve sagebrush ecosystem health on 29,000 acres of grouse lands.

Dustin Van Liew of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, a ranching trade group, also lauded today's decision, saying, "Livestockgrazing and wildlife habitat conservation go hand in hand."

"We hope the secretary will take the same consideration for the greater sage grouse, which habitat spans across 11 Western states and encompasses 186 million acres of both federal and private land," he added.

Even if Fish and Wildlife had decided to finalize a threatened listing for the bi-state bird, a legislative riderCongresstucked into last December's omnibus spending bill would have prevented ESA protections from taking hold until at least October.

But FWS Director Dan Ashe said last December -- before the spending bill was passed -- that he anticipated the listing rule could be withdrawn.

Federal scientists believe there are about 1,800 to 7,400 bi-state grouse remaining. They look and behave similarly to their greater sage grouse kin and require the same habitat of sage brush, grasses, and forbs. But they are considered a distinct population segment under ESA due to their genetic uniqueness and their geographical separation from other birds.

A handful of environmental groups today blasted the government's decision.

Michael Connor, the California director for Western Watersheds Project, said FWS as recently as last December had assigned the bi-state grouse the maximum priority for listing based on the gravity of threats.

None of the six populations of bi-state grouse has exceeded 2,500 birds over the past decade, WWP said in a joint media statement with the American Bird Conservancy, Center for Biological Diversity, and WildEarth Guardians. In contrast, Fish and Wildlife decided last year to list as threatened the Gunnison sage grouse, whose main population in western Colorado numbers roughly 4,000 birds.

The four groups earlier this month said a draft record of decision released in February by the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest to amend land-use plans and bolster grouse protections on 1 million acres of forestland fell short of the protections needed (Greenwire, April 8).

Fish and Wildlife in its October 2013 listing proposal had warned that existing regulatory mechanisms -- chiefly theBLMand Forest Service land-use plans -- were "inadequate" to protect the grouse. No federal land-use plan amendments have been completed.

Today's listing withdrawal was based in large part on the availability of $45 million in funding to implement a 2012conservation action plancrafted by state and federal agencies, ranchers, conservation groups, and university scientists. The plan has addressed the major threats to bi-state grouse and includes management prescriptions that are improving habitat now, FWS said.

When completed, the land-use plan amendments atBLMand the Forest Service will address remaining threats, the agency said.

Today's decision contrasts with FWS's decision last November to finalize a proposed threatened listing for the Gunnison sage grouse in Colorado and Utah over the strong objections of elected officials from those states (Greenwire, Nov. 12, 2014).

At about 5,000 birds, Gunnison sage grouse populations are roughly the same as bi-state birds. But the vast majority of Gunnison grouse are located in one population in Gunnison County, Colo., with six smaller, isolated satellite populations that "are much less robust," with populations as small as 16 birds, FWS said in a statement last November. "If anything happened to the core population, healthy satellite populations would be essential to enable the species to rebound," the agency said.

Originally Posted By E & E