The Department of the Interior appears to have its priorities crooked.
The new priority of Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell’s rangeland fire strategy is to better protect sage grouse habitat.
That’s an important priority. Settlers
once said they saw millions of the birds. Now the numbers might be as
low as 200,000. It might be listed as an endangered species.
What’s unclear is what the new priority
means when fire managers have to make choices. The priority ranking has
been protecting human life, protecting private property and protecting
public resources. Now there’s the new one to protect sage grouse
habitat.
One Bureau of Land Management official
had suggested that it could mean that private property could be moved
below protecting sage grouse habitat/public resources. We asked the
press office at the Interior Department in Washington, D.C., if that’s
how it will work.
No, they told us. The statement they sent
said it “does not re-prioritize the protection of the ecosystem over
the safely of the public and our firefighters.” It’s just another
critical fire management priority for managers to consider.
Maybe that makes sense in Washington. But
in Oregon, at least, it doesn’t work to just keep adding priorities. You
have to know how you value them.
If you are a federal fire or land manager,
you have to make choices about how you use resources. It’s probably not
going to be as razor-edged a drama as: “We can save the sage grouse
nest or we can save that home. Which is it going to be, sir?” But it’s
easy to imagine that there will be decisions similar to that.
2 comments:
Settlers did not see thousands of sage grouse flying up -- here, in the Great Basin that includes what is now Northern Nevada explorers prior to 1850 only recorded the bird on two occasions. Reports of vast numbers of sage hens occurred in 1950 to 1970.
That means that 1950-1960 provided the peak numbers of the birds. Their increase in numbers followed the arrival of settlers, especially sheep ranches.
The decline has happened in the last 30 years basically in parallel to the federal agency causing the dramatic decline in livestock grazing. Nevada sheep have been reduced from nearly two million in early 1900s to about 70,000 today and range cattle have been reduced by about 1/3.
Livestock, especially sheep, represent a genuine benefit to sage grouse populations. If we want more sage hens we need more sheep.
Thanks Floyd.
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