U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Found throughout the West, the greater sage grouse once numbered as many as 16 million, but now, due to overgrazing and oil and gas development, stand at fewer than 200,000.
I remember waking up early one crisp Wyoming morning 20 years ago to accompany a local wildlife biologist to an active sage grouse lek. A lek is where male sage grouse perform mating displays to attract females. As the sun came up, we were greeted by male sage grouse fanning their tail feathers and making weird burping noises with large air sacs in their chest. The noise reverberated across the chilly sagebrush flats, in search of female sage grouse suitors. Sadly, today that lek is no longer active as oil and gas wells and associated roads have exploded in Southwest Wyoming, bringing constant noise that drowns out the unique mating calls of the sage grouse.
That’s why I rejoiced recently when the Obama administration took a significant step towards protecting the greater sage grouse. In a press conference, the Department of Interior laid out a national plan for sage grouse conservation management in ten states across the West that would impact the management of millions of acres of publicly owned land. These areas are home to the greater sage grouse and hundreds of other animals and plants that could face extinction if land and wildlife management agencies do not act soon to change management practices that degrade habitat.
This is part of larger national conservation strategy that includes state-level planning as well as a private land component. Federal land constitutes 64% of sage grouse habitat, and these newly released plans could be the key to protecting the bird. However, they failed to include the necessary measures that would adequately protect this iconic species.
Recently, top scientists sent a letter to Secretaries Jewell and Vilsack outlining critical measures to protect and restore the greater sage grouse. These scientists highlighted protecting sage grouse breeding, nesting, and brood-rearing habitats from oil and gas development; ensuring that livestock grazing is managed to leave vegetation to provide cover for hens and chicks; and immediately ending the disruptive burning, plowing, spraying of sagebrush habitat.
The creation of science-based sage grouse plans is essential to the future of this magnificent bird. However, these plans do not make the necessary changes needed to protect the sage grouse. In order to be effective, the plans must stop oil and gas development, surface coal mining, and new subsurface coal mining on or near priority sage grouse habitats. They must also establish buffers between wind farms and active sage grouse leks, establish conservation areas protected from livestock grazing, and end the deliberate destruction of sagebrush habitat. Due to the failure by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service to include these crucial science based measures in the plans, the Sierra Club has joined with others to formally protest them and call for an immediate fix.
I applaud the Obama administration for taking this first step to protect the rapidly dwindling populations of sage grouse, but sadly the plans fall short of what is needed. Effective conservation plans must protect leks by reducing disturbance from energy development and better managed livestock grazing on our public lands. Federal agencies must take these necessary measures now in order to slow the decline of sage grouse populations across the West.
I hope that one day, I can show my kids, and their kids, the magnificent mating dance of the sage grouse on the windswept plains of Wyoming.