Upholds Endangered Species Act Protections for Gunnison Sage Grouse

Immediate Release, September 28, 2018

Contact:

Ryan Shannon, Center for Biological Diversity, (503) 283-5474 x 407, rshannon@biologicaldiversity.org
Bethany Cotton, WildEarth Guardians, (406) 414-7227, bcotton@wildearthguardians.org
Erik Molvar, Western Watersheds Project, (307) 399-7910, emolvar@westernwatersheds.org
Talasi Brooks, Advocates for the West, (208) 342-7024 x 208, tbrooks@advocateswest.org

Rare Bird Threatened by Drilling, Sprawl, Livestock Grazing in Utah, Colorado

GUNNISON, Colo.— A federal judge on Thursday rejected efforts to remove Endangered Species Act protection from the Gunnison sage grouse, upholding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s determination that the species warranted protection under the Act.

The Gunnison sage grouse — an imperiled bird in Colorado and Utah known for its elaborate courtship rituals — was protected as a threatened species with 1.4 million acres of designated critical habitat in 2014. With only a small fraction of its historic range remaining, the bird is in danger of disappearing because of sprawl development, oil and gas drilling, grazing and climate change.

“We’re relieved that desperately needed protection for these unique birds will stand,” said Ryan Shannon, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Now it’s time for federal wildlife officials to focus on recovering this critically imperiled species. We need quick action or the West will lose these birds forever.”

The Center for Biological Diversity, Dr. Clait Braun, Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians had intervened in the lawsuit to defend the Gunnison sage grouse against attacks from the states of Utah and Colorado; San Juan County, Utah; the Board of County Commissioners of the County of Gunnison, Colo.; and the Gunnison County Stockgrowers’ Association.

The Gunnison sage grouse is limited to a small area of southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. Because of a history of habitat loss and fragmentation, a mere seven isolated populations remain, with a total population of fewer than 3,000 birds. All seven populations are in decline.

“Gunnison sage grouse numbers are tanking as their habitat is destroyed, and the science clearly shows that the species is endangered,” said Talasi Brooks, a staff attorney at Advocates of the West. “But we’re glad that the Gunnison sage grouse will remain protected. Hopefully the species can recover.”

“Sadly, the numbers don’t look good for the Gunnison sage grouse with only 723 males counted in 2018,” said noted Gunnison sage grouse biologist Clait Braun. “That translates to about 2,892 total Gunnison sage grouse left in the entire world. Hopefully the judge’s decision means that we can protect this small remaining population.”

“The court clearly recognized that with seven declining and isolated populations, and local conservation efforts incapable of eliminating the clear and well-documented threats to the Gunnison sage grouse’s survival, the specter of extinction remains a very real and troubling possibility today,” said Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist and executive director of Western Watersheds Project. “The court found no scientific merit in the notion that existing state and local conservation efforts are enough to save and recover this bird.” 

“Today’s decision gives the magnificent Gunnison sage grouse a fighting chance to survive and ultimately recover,” said Bethany Cotton, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians. “We hope that Utah and Colorado will now spend their time and considerable resources working to safeguard this imperiled dancing bird instead of fighting against our best tool to prevent extinction.”

Western Watersheds Project and the Center for Biological Diversity were represented by Center attorneys. WildEarth Guardians and Dr. Braun were represented by attorneys at Advocates for the West.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.6 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

WildEarth Guardians protects and restores the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers and health of the American West.

Western Watersheds Project works to protect and restore western watersheds and wildlife, particularly on public lands.

Advocates for the West protects and defends our public lands, watersheds, and air, through litigation and negotiation.

Source  

US Announces Plans to Protect Rare Colorado, Utah Birds

By DAN ELLIOTT, ASSOCIATED PRESS

DENVER — Aug 12, 2016, 4:55 PM ET

Federal land managers announced long-awaited plans to protect the rare Gunnison sage grouse, a bird found only in Colorado and Utah.

The Bureau of Land Management released a nearly 1,000-page document late Thursday proposing restrictions on energy development, roads and grazing.

The proposals include closing or limiting the use of some areas during the birds' mating season, from mid-March to Mid-May, and during harsh winter weather. That could affect exploration for oil and gas, among other activities.

Other proposals include limits on the size of rights of way for utility lines and pipelines. Release of the plans opens a 90-day period for public comment. Final rules are expected next year.

Only about 5,000 Gunnison sage grouse remain in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. The bird was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 2014. About 2,200 square miles in the two states are considered critical habitat.

Threatened status is less serious than endangered, which means a species is on the verge of extinction now and requires tighter restrictions.

The Gunnison grouse is related to the greater sage grouse, which is found across 11 Western states. Federal wildlife managers decided in September not to protect the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act, but conservation restrictions are planned on public lands.

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Feds list bird as threatened

BY MATT HILDNER THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

Published: November 13, 2014; Last modified: November 13, 2014 11:30PM

VILLA GROVE — Federal officials Wednesday listed the Gunnison sage grouse as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

While roughly 80 percent of the birds reside in the Gunnison basin, a small population estimated at 15 birds by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2012 lives on the south side of Poncha Pass.

Service officials said in a press release that the birds in small populations like the one on Poncha Pass and others scattered on the Western Slope needed the protections of the act to ensure the species’ survival should the Gunnison basin population decline.

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This Beautiful Bird Might Thwart the Oil and Gas Industry's Drilling Plans

By Jeff Ball

Aquarter-century ago, a fight over the fate of a nocturnal bird came to symbolize the standoff between environmentalism and industry. In 1990, the federal government declared the northern spotted owl a threatened species, thwarting timber operations on millions of acres in California and the Pacific Northwest where the bird nests in trees. Conservationists cheered. The timber industry jeered. A cultural icon with feathers was born, and a culture war over ecology erupted. 

Sometime in the next two weeks—likely on November 12, a legal deadline that happens to fall a week after the midterm elections—the Obama administration is scheduled to announce whether it will put another imperiled critter on the Endangered Species List. The Gunnison sage grouse, a chicken-like bird, roams the range of Colorado and Utah. Its numbers have dwindled over the years due, scientists say, to many factors, from wilder wildfires to increased development. A move by the government to put the bird on the Endangered Species List would, in turn, threaten many other things in the grouse’s habitat: among them, surging oil and gas production.

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US government steps in to save the Gunnison sage grouse

A coalition of conservation groups, including the Wild Earth Guardians and Rocky Mountain Wild, have applauded the US government’s announcement of a planning process to adopt stronger protections for the Gunnison sage grouse across federal lands in south western Colorado and eastern Utah.

Government lands make up approximately half of the remaining occupied habitat for the endangered bird with its elaborate courtship display.

“Even though the federal government has been working on beefing up protections for the greater sage grouse [a close relation of the Gunnison] across 11 states for more than three years, federal land protections for the Gunnison sage grouse have been slow in coming, even though the prognosis is far more grave for the survival of this bird,” said Erik Molvar, wildlife biologist with WildEarth Guardians.

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Newly Discovered, Nearly Extinct

By JOHN W. FITZPATRICK

SEVERAL springs ago some friends and I arose before dawn in Moab, Utah, to witness the sunrise mating dance of the Gunnison sage grouse: a surreal display of nine ornately plumed, chicken-size birds tottering about amid the sagebrush like windup toys, fanning their spiky tails and uttering a magical sound — “pop ... pop-pop!” — as they thrust yellow air sacs out of their snow-white chests.

Now as I look back, I realize I might have been inadvertently paying my last respects. For the Gunnison sage grouse, only recently known to science, is going extinct, right before our eyes.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has a chance to stop this by listing this bird as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, and I strongly encourage the agency to do so immediately.

The Gunnison sage grouse received its common name in the year 2000, after several astute scientists recognized that its long crown plumes and elaborate mating display were completely different from other sage grouse. It was the first new bird species to be described in continental North America in a century, and it was already in trouble, its range having almost entirely shrunk to within the Gunnison Basin of western Colorado.

Continued:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/opinion/the-plight-of-the-gunnison-sage-grouse.html?_r=0