WASHINGTON — Just a few days are left until the Obama administration decides whether the Gunnison Sage-Grouse should be classified as a threatened species, a ruling that could thwart energy development in the bird’s Colorado and Utah habitat.
But county and state officials working to head off a listing say time may have already run out.
“We have every indication that they are going to list it,” said John Swartout, a senior policy adviser in the office of Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. “We are having some last-minute conversations and seeing if we can avert that.”
Hickenlooper has joined officials in Gunnison County, Colorado and other stakeholders in making personal pleas to the Interior Department and its Fish and Wildlife Service, asking the agency to effectively reward conservation efforts, land-use regulations and some $50 million in investments intended to protect the grouse.
Those voluntary efforts are now protecting 90 percent of the private land in the core habitat for the Gunnison Sage-Grouse, which is especially sensitive to disturbances during its showy, strutting courtship rituals each spring.
That core population in and around Gunnison County is now stabilized and climbing in number, after a devastating drought a decade ago. But the “satellite population,” scattered in small numbers across 10 Colorado counties and one in Utah, is more vulnerable and not faring as well.
State and local officials are pleading with the Fish and Wildlife Service to decide an Endangered Species Act listing is “not warranted” for the bird, ahead of a court-mandated Nov. 12 deadline.
“We feel we have met the threshold as far as conservation efforts and things we are doing: programs in place and land-use regulations and, especially, the involvement we have with private property owners,” said Gunnison County Commissioner Jonathan Houck. “It’s been a challenge to have Fish and Wildlife fully comprehend all of the programs we’re doing at the local level.”
Although the agency has already transmitted its planned decision to a White House office for review, FWS spokesman Theodore Stein stressed that there is still time before it is formalized with publication in the government’s Federal Register.
And he noted that the protections embraced by Gunnison County and Colorado Parks and Wildlife have been both consequential and effective, shifting the approach of federal regulators who had initially proposed listing the grouse as endangered, instead of the lesser threatened status.
“What they have done is to have demonstrated real leadership in Gunnison conservation,” Stein said. “But under the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service has to consider the population as a whole. That is where the concern lies: We have to consider the satellite population and their health.”
Much is riding on the decision — and not just the survival of the Gunnison Sage-Grouse. County and state officials who want to keep the Gunnison off the threatened species list say the government’s decision here will affect how willing landowners, farmers, oil companies and local regulators are to take voluntary action to preserve the Greater Sage-Grouse that has habitat in 11 western states, right in the path of drill bits.
Swartout said a threatened classification on the Gunnison Sage-Grouse would send a bad message to those living and working where the Greater Sage-Grouse struts. The Fish and Wildlife Service is set to make a decision on the Greater Sage-Grouse by Sept. 30, 2015.
“How am I ever going to get another private landowner to put a conservation easement on their property and protect their property if their brethren in Gunnison did all that work and the FWS said it’s not good enough?” he said.
Swartout said the state would consider its legal options if the Fish and Wildlife Service determines the Gunnison Sage-Grouse is threatened.
“The public thinks a listing protects the bird,” he said. “In reality, it’s not a duality. We can protect these species and not kill local economies. That’s what Colorado has tried to prove: You can do both, you don’t have to shut down the oil and gas industry to protect the sage grouse.”
Share this: