Tag Archives: sage grouse

Government releases wildfire strategy aimed at protecting sage grouse

Environmental Issues, News,

The feds have developed a wildfire strategy they hope will help protect sage grouse . . .

A federal wildfire strategy released Tuesday aims to protect the West’s sagebrush country that is home to a struggling bird species and to help prevent the sage grouse from being classified as threatened or endangered later this year.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell was in Boise to announce the plan making greater sage grouse habitat a priority for fire prevention and response, focusing mainly on the Great Basin region of Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and California.

The plan comes as the federal government and Western states scramble to implement plans meant to halt the decline of sage grouse populations and habitat. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is under a court order to decide by Sept. 30 whether the sage grouse merits protections from the Endangered Species Act.

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New Montana law to fund sage grouse preservation

Environmental Issues, News

Montana now has a pot of money for sage grouse conservation . . .

Gov. Steve Bullock has signed into law a plan to pay for and enact Montana’s strategy to preserve a struggling bird species.

Bullock signed Senate Bill 261, the Sage Grouse Stewardship Act, during a small ceremony in his office Thursday.

The measure will provide millions of dollars for the state to conserve habitat for the chicken-sized birds. Part of the money will be used by the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to hire at least five new employees to manage the program.

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Western Governors’ Association releases report on sage grouse conservation efforts

Environmental Issues, News, ,

The western U.S. states really do not want a federally managed sage grouse conservation effort . . .

A group of Western-state governors has released a report on voluntary efforts in 11 states to conserve the habitat of sage grouse as part of an effort to avoid a federal listing of the bird under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The 32-page “2014 Sage-Grouse Inventory” released Thursday by the Western Governors’ Association identifies conservation work during the year and is accompanied by a 101-page appendix listing efforts since 2011.

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Collaborative sage grouse protection deal signed in Nevada

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Seems this public-private collaboration idea is spreading . . .

An unprecedented attempt to protect sage grouse habitat across parts of more than 900 square miles of privately owned land in Nevada will begin under a deal Thursday involving the federal government, an environmental group and the world’s largest gold mining company.

The agreement comes as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approaches a fall deadline for a decision on whether to protect the greater sage grouse, a bird roughly the size of a chicken that ranges across the West, under the Endangered Species Act.

Commercial operations, including mining companies and oil and gas producers, are entering into such deals in an effort to keep the bird off the threatened or endangered list because the classification would place new restrictions on their work.

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Serious money being spent on sage grouse conservation

Environmental Issues, News,

Everyone knows to take government budget numbers with a grain of salt, right? Still, this overview of the money being directed towards sage grouse conservation is pretty interesting . . .

Spending on a government-sponsored initiative to help struggling sage grouse populations in the West is projected to exceed $750 million by 2018.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday the money will conserve an estimated 8 million acres of sage grouse habitat. Federal officials are more than halfway to that goal since starting the Sage Grouse Initiative in 2010.

The chicken-sized birds are found in 11 Western states. They’re being considered for federal protections after their numbers plummeted in recent decades.

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Protections blocked, but sage grouse work continues

Environmental Issues, News,

The feds will keep investigating the status of the sage grouse, even though they can’t actually do anything about it right now . . .

U.S. wildlife officials will decide next year whether a wide-ranging Western bird species needs protections even though Congress has blocked such protections from taking effect, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Wednesday.

They could determine the greater sage grouse is heading toward possible extinction, but they would be unable to intervene under the Endangered Species Act. The bird’s fate instead remains largely in the hands of the 11 individual states where they are found…

Jewell said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will continue collecting and analyzing data on sage grouse. A decision on whether protections are warranted will be reached by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, Interior officials said.

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Reports says sage grouse needs 3-mile buffer from energy projects

Environmental Issues, News,

A recent government report calls for a 3-mile buffer from energy development activities to protect sage grouse. This is not just a drilling restriction, it also applies to other activities such as solar arrays and wind farms . . .

A government report with significant implications for the U.S. energy industry says a struggling bird species needs a 3-mile buffer between its breeding grounds and oil and gas drilling, wind farms and solar projects.

The study comes as the Obama administration weighs new protections for the greater sage grouse. The ground-dwelling, chicken-sized birds range across 11 western states and two Canadian provinces.

A 3-mile buffer for the birds represents a much larger area than the no-occupancy zones where drilling and other activity is prohibited under some state and federal land management plans.

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Sage grouse become political touchstone in West

Environmental Issues, News, ,

This is a pretty good overview of the concerns and election-year politics behind the sage grouse preservation issue . . .

An obscure, chicken-sized bird best known for its mating dance could help determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. Senate in November.

The federal government is considering listing the greater sage grouse as an endangered species next year. Doing so could limit development, energy exploration, hunting and ranching on the 165 million acres of the bird’s habitat across 11 Western states.

Apart from the potential economic disruption, which some officials in Western states discuss in tones usually reserved for natural disasters, the specter of the bird’s listing is reviving the centuries-old debates about local vs. federal control and whether to develop or conserve the region’s vast expanses of land.

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Montana FWP wants public comment on proposed wolf and sage grouse regulations

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Here’s a chance to make yourself heard regarding wolf and sage grouse management . . .

The Montana Fish & Wildlife Commission is seeking comment though June 23 on some upcoming hunting seasons and additional proposals related to sage grouse and wolves.

For sage grouse, the commission is seeking comment on a proposal that would either maintain the same 30-day season and two-bird daily bag and four bird possession limit as last season; adopt shorter seasons and reduced bag and possession limits; impose region-specific hunting opportunities or closures; or close the sage grouse hunting season statewide.

The sage grouse proposal comes in response to surveys on sage grouse breeding grounds called “leks” that show a continued population decline of the state’s largest native upland game bird. Montana’s 2004 management plan identifies a season closure when lek counts are significantly reduced from historical observations.

The commission also seeks comment on the following wolf-related proposals:

  • the 2014-15 wolf season, which includes adjustments that would close the hunting and trapping season in Wolf Management Units 313 and 316 within 12 hours of the harvests quotas there being reached. These WMUs border Yellowstone National Park. The proposal also includes reducing the harvest quota in WMU 313 from four to three wolves.
  • to offer the opportunity to trap wolves via a drawing on three western Montana wildlife management areas, including the Blackfoot-Clearwater, Fish Creek and Mount Haggin WMAs.
  • a statewide annual quota of 100 wolves taken under a new state law that provides for landowners to take wolves without a license that are a potential threat to human safety, livestock or pets.

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Montana FWP to propose sage grouse hunt closure

Environmental Issues, News, ,

With the sage grouse population in decline, Montana will stop hunting them . . .

With preliminary results from Montana’s spring surveys showing a continued population decline of the state’s largest native upland game bird, wildlife officials will seek to close sage grouse hunting for the 2014 season.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks will propose the season closure at the Fish & Wildlife Commission meeting in Fort Peck, Thursday, May 22.

Jeff Hagener, FWP director in Helena, said state biologists counted an average of 14.9 males per sage grouse strutting ground, or lek, last year and noted that preliminary indications show little or no improvement this year. Last year’s count was the lowest recorded since 1980…

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