To understand the latest battle over the greater sage grouse one need look no further than how Matt Mead and Ryan Zinke present themselves. Consider the bicep. For Zinke, the Interior Secretary, that’s easy. The department’s website offers a shot of the 56-year-old fly fishing, his flexed arm extended just so. Mead has formidable arms of his own. But the Wyoming governor poses in suits. Or shirtsleeves. Of course, this isn’t a story about the biceps of western politicians. But it is about a federal administrator who seems close to unraveling one of the governor’s signature achievements — preserving sage grouse protections — and attacking one of Mead’s core beliefs about how politics should be conducted. Over the summer, Zinke opened a 60-day review of those federal sage grouse management plans put in place to stop the bird from being listed as an endangered species. The review was followed by a notice in the federal register signaling key aspects will be reconsidered. The public has 45 days to respond. The rushed timeline and long-term risk of weaker plans have led to strange bed fellows looking at Mead as their reluctant champion. And so onto a political landscape, where animosity is increasingly standard, struts an oblivious bird with a bright yellow chest, a swaggering former Navy SEAL-turned-bureaucrat and a mild-mannered western governor who doesn’t believe ruffling feathers gets the job done. It takes time for those new to the sage grouse dance to pick up its rhythm, the political, social and economic resonance it has across the West. From keeping Wyoming’s landscape open and wild to exploring for oil and gas and running livestock, virtually every western issue overlaps with the bird and conserving the places where it lives. This isn’t as simple as whether the bird can coexist with a drilling rig. Experts say it’s about finding a way to repair a damaged habitat while maintaining the industries and interests of the people who love the West, the people who live and work in it. “It affects everything. Industry — where they can drill, ranchers — how they graze their cattle,” said Dan Smitherman, Wyoming representative for the Wilderness Society, which opposes wholesale changes to the sage grouse plans that also protect the habitat of about 350 other species...more
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