Interior Announces Changes in Sage Grouse Management;
BHA Responds

MISSOULA, Mont. – Following an Interior Department announcement today of a “notice of intent” to amend proven conservation plans for the greater sage grouse to enable increased industrial and commercial development in the bird’s habitat, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Conservation Director John Gale offered a pointed response:

“The Interior Department’s decision to alter its existing successful approach to sage grouse habitat management subverts the will of a majority of Americans and the needs of the grouse in favor of the interests of the energy industry. Our Western landscapes will be poorer as a result.

“A victory in sage grouse management was achieved two years ago with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision not to list the grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The reason for this decision? Forward-looking, collaborative, science-based sage grouse management plans that balance development with conservation and protect critical areas of sage grouse habitat.

“Ranchers, business owners, local elected officials and sportsmen dedicated untold hours to forging results-oriented sage grouse conservation plans – plans that enable traditional uses of these lands such as grazing and development while also allowing hunting and fishing. Changing this approach now would undermine not only an historic, multi-stakeholder conservation strategy; it also would hurt the Western communities that depend on a strong and growing outdoors-focused economy.

“Sportsmen and other citizens who prize our public lands and waters must speak out loudly and clearly: Changing course in sage grouse management now is a mistake. We must stay the course and responsibly manage our Western sagebrush steppe.”

A poll released in August by BHA demonstrates strong, bipartisan support for existing sage grouse management plans by voters in Western counties with valuable sage grouse habitat. More than half of voters polled – including 56 percent of hunters and sportsmen – in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Nevada and Idaho, all key sage grouse states, said they support the plans in place now to protect the sagebrush landscape.

Further, only a fraction of greater sage grouse habitat is capable of producing energy of any kind, now or in the future, with 79 percent of areas with medium to high potential for energy development falling outside of grouse habitat, according to a BHA report released in June.

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers is the sportsmen’s voice
for our wild public lands, waters and wildlife.

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