Next environment battle: greater sage grouse

Federal officials say their decision to protect dwindling Gunnison sage grouse populations in Colorado and Utah has no bearing on next year's highly anticipated ruling on the far more widespread greater sage grouse — but advocates on both sides already are placing their bets. "I think that this does not bode well for the greater sage grouse," said Amy Atwood, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. Atwood said she hopes the greater sage grouse will be protected, but she fears the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will succumb to pressure from industries that oppose the land-use restrictions that such protection would bring. Rep. Doc Hastings, the Republican chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, came to the opposite conclusion. Hastings called the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision, announced Wednesday, to protect Gunnison grouse drastic and wrong. He said it "foreshadows the intentions of the Obama administration" as it considers protections for greater sage grouse in portions of 11 Western states. The Fish and Wildlife Service faces a court-ordered deadline of September 2015 to rule on the greater sage grouse. That decision could affect development, energy exploration, hunting and ranching across the bird's vast range, which covers 290,000 square miles in California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The greater sage grouse also is found in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Scientists say the greater sage grouse and the Gunnison sage grouse are related but separate species. About 5,000 Gunnison sage grouse remain in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. The agency estimates the greater sage grouse population at 200,000 to 500,000...more