Jewell, Mead, laud ranchers’ grouse conservation

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Gov. Matt Mead on Wednesday signed agreements with nine Wyoming ranching families aimed at preserving sage grouse and the ranch operations on 39,000 acres. Overlooking thousands of acres of BLM sagebrush and private ranches at Trappers’ Point near Pinedale, Jewell and Mead said the agreements would ensure ranching would continue — in a manner that safeguards the imperiled bird — even if the greater sage grouse becomes protected next year under the Endangered Species Act. The ceremony, which began with Jewell and Mead hugging, contrasted with recent critical rhetoric from Western governors regarding potential protection of the grouse by Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service next year. The “candidate conservation agreements with assurances,” require ranchers to follow practices that protect grouse. Those can include limiting grazing near grouse mating grounds and flagging fences so grouse don’t collide with them, among other measures. In exchange, if grouse are protected by the federal government by a September, 2015, deadline, those ranchers’ operations would not be curtailed by additional restrictions. The nine agreements signed Wednesday — the first in Wyoming, Jewell said — cover more than 39,000 acres in Sublette, Johnson and Campbell counties. Mead praised former Gov. Dave Freudenthal for beginning the process of protecting sage grouse in Wyoming. “But none of it happens without the ranchers,” he said...more