The bi-state sage grouse, a subspecies of the greater sage grouse bird found in California and Nevada, has recovered enough to avoid an endangered species listing, the Obama administration said Tuesday.
The Interior Department said the bi-state sage grouse no longer needs protection. It credited a $45 million conservation plan designed by state and federal agencies with ranchers, conservation groups and academics along the Nevada-California border to revive the sagebrush on which the bird feeds.
“It’s a conservation success story,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said at a press conference in Reno, Nev., noting the effort took more than 15 years.
The population of the bi-state sage grouse ranges between 2,500 and 9,000 in the region’s 4.5 million acres of high-desert sagebrush. GOP Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, who joined Jewell and said she had his “admiration” for working with the state, said, “This moment … has been many years in the making.”
The decision to withdraw the 2010 proposal to put it on the endangered species list is a victory for energy companies that said an endangered listing would threaten mining, renewable energy and oil and gas development, but a blow to some conservation and environmental groups. The improvement in the bi-state sage grouse population could foretell an upswing for the rest of the species.
The bigger fight will be over the larger species. The Fish and Wildlife Service must decide by the end of September whether the bird, which covers 165 million acres across 11 Western states, deserves an endangered species listing.
“People like to make fun of [the Endangered Species Act],” Jewell said. “But it’s a critical safety net for states and animals.”
Republicans are ready to go to battle on prevent a listing for the greater sage grouse. They contend the Obama administration has too readily resorted to the endangered species listings that could thwart economic development. The GOP included a policy rider in the fiscal 2015 budget that through October would have blocked the Fish and Wildlife Service from giving bi-state bird an endangered species protections.
