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March 9, 2010

Interior Dept. Puts Off Listing Sage Grouse As Endangered Species
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An environmental group is challenging plans by the Interior Department
to classify sage grouse as merely a candidate for protection under the
Endangered Species Act and not list the bird as threatened or
endangered. The group Western Watersheds filed the complaint on Monday.
Sage grouse are football-sized birds that live in the sagebrush in
California, Colorado, the Dakotas, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah,
Washington, Wyoming and western Canada. The numbers of sage grouse have
declined by 90 percent over the past century. Energy companies have
hailed the Interior Departments decision not to list the sage grouse as
as threatened or endangered because it opens the way for continued
development of the West’s wind energy and oil and gas industries. In
Wyoming, large areas of sage grouse habitat also are prime spots for
natural gas development.



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