SALT LAKE CITY — Brilliantly plumed and about
the size of a chicken, the imperiled Gunnison sage grouse is being proposed for
listing under the Endangered Species Act, a move praised by environmentalists
and bemoaned by Utah officials.
Only about 120 of the birds exist in Utah in the
southeastern section of the state in San Juan County, where an active,
on-the-ground conservation effort has been under way since the mid-1990s,
before the bird was even recognized as a distinct species in 2000.
“We did everything we could to preclude a
listing under the Endangered Species Act, but we were fighting an uphill
battle,” said Kevin Bunnell, wildlife section chief of the Utah Division of
Wildlife Resources.
In its announcement of the proposed listing, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the bird is in danger of extinction, and in
2006 the National Audubon Society named it as one of North America’s 10 most
endangered birds.
Biologists believe the bird has lost 90 percent
of its historic habitat and now exists in only seven distinct populations.
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