SALT LAKE CITY — The concern over a possible endangered species listing for the greater sage grouse in 11 states is deepening in anticipation of a Sept. 30 agency decision, with Utah officials urging that state plans be allowed to prove their conservation successes.
Protecting the greater sage grouse and bolstering its West-wide range lies at the heart of what all sides say is an unprecedented effort to stave off threats to the chicken-size bird, which has seen the majority of its habitat ruined from a variety of problems including wildfire and the onslaught of invasive species.
In a discussion with the Deseret News and KSL editorial boards this month, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell called the range-wide conservation effort "epic."
"It is the biggest, most comprehensive collaborative conservation effort to ever take place in the United States in terms of its complexity, size and potential impact," she said. "I think there has been epic cooperation from all the states through this process."
But Utah's top wildlife and land management authorities say that collaboration began to break down a year ago when the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service abruptly sought "more" restrictions in plans designed to manage and protect bird populations.
"Negotiations have broken down," said Kathleen Clarke, director of the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office.
Clarke said the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service plans for Utah and the other Western states go too far and aim to protect habitat that is already compromised or "marginal" for grouse populations.
"The plans are not comforting," she said.
Clarke and other proponents of the Utah plan to protect the bird also met with the editorial boards, detailing in a Monday meeting their fears over threatened federal action.
Mike Styler, executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, said species improve through active management of habitat, not through regulation.
"Any wildlife species will be better taken care of under state management rather than federal management," he said.
Clarke asserts that the federal plans released earlier this year — even absent adding the bird to the endangered species list — will invoke numerous restrictions on a bevy of economic activity in the state, including oil and gas development, grazing and recreation, and generally hinder access to public lands.
On top of the millions of potential revenue that would be lost, successful conservation efforts would fall flat, she said.
The Department of Interior, however, points out that an overwhelming majority of priority sage grouse habitat in Utah — 96 percent – falls outside of zones with medium to high potential for development of natural gas, and 99 percent of those same lands do not include high potential for oil development.
But Clarke and others say it is those "general habitat" zones that are troublesome, roping in more land they say isn't prime for sage grouse populations anyway.
They had hoped hoped federal officials would support the Utah sage grouse conservation plan they say protects 94 percent of the birds in 11 distinct management areas.
With half of sage grouse habitat on privately owned land in the state, the effort has necessarily had to draw on the support of ranchers and others in the industry, and represents a $60 million endeavor that thus far has improved more than a half-million acres.
Greg Sheehan, director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, said efforts to concentrate habitat restoration on prime population areas has paid off, with the state experiencing a 40 percent increase in sage grouse counts from 2013 to 2014.
Sheehan said the region is faced with monumental consequences if the bird is listed.
"It will change the world we live in in the West," he said, pointing to an unprecedented 160 million acres that stand to be impacted. "We will have a war in the West."
As the result of a legal petition brought by environmental organizations in 2002, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is under a court-ordered deadline to make a decision on whether it will add the bird to endangered species list.
In Utah, the federal plans identified 583,000 acres as general habitat and 2.7 million acres as priority habitat, or lands that have the most value for maintaining "sustainable" sage grouse populations.
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, and other members of Utah's Congressional delegation have been pushing for a delay in any federal action, arguing that the state plans need to time to prove they are working.
Jewell said a delay would just prolong the uncertainty.
"We don't agree with that," she said.
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