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Sage Grouse Concerns Drive TRCP Protest of Wyoming Energy Leases
1/23/08
Oil and gas development also would affect big-game winter range and migration corridors
Washington, D.C. –The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) has filed a formal protest of the Feb. 5 Bureau of Land Management energy lease sale in Wyoming. The conservation coalition’s protest, which covers 125 parcels on about 150,000 total acres, includes irreplaceable sage grouse habitat and mule deer, elk and pronghorn winter range and migration corridors that would be negatively impacted by energy development.
The TRCP action considers a recent decision by the U.S. District Court in Idaho that calls on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to review the potential listing of sage grouse as an endangered species. The court reversed and remanded the agency’s “not warranted” listing decision issued in 2005 and specifically questioned the conduct and decisions of a former high-ranking Interior Department employee. If the sage grouse is listed under the Endangered Species Act, sage grouse hunters would be the first of many stakeholders to suffer from the repercussions. Numerous recent studies have documented the impacts of oil and gas development on sage grouse populations and habitat.
“The BLM should take no action that will further harm sage grouse habitat until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined if the species will be listed as endangered,” said Steven Belinda, energy initiative manager for the TRCP and a former BLM biologist. “Recent research on the impacts of oil and gas development on sage grouse concludes that development has an immediate and significant effect on the bird’s populations and habitat. American sportsmen stand to lose the most if sage grouse are declared endangered.
“What’s more, as long as the BLM persists in basing its decisions on outdated information – and some of the resource management plans that the agency uses in formulating development strategies are 20 years old – we’ll continue to see development plans being green-lighted that do not serve the best interests of fish, wildlife and our public lands,” continued Belinda.
In formulating its protest, the TRCP also used habitat information drawn from relationships built between its field staff and Wyoming’s hunters and anglers. The TRCP’s recent outreach to sportsmen in Wyoming and its last such protest, filed in November for energy leases proposed in southeastern Wyoming’s North Platte Valley, sparked widespread public outcry against the Dec. 4 BLM lease sale and incited a flurry of similar protests from sportsmen, local municipalities and government officials. As a result, the BLM announced its decision to withdraw the North Platte Valley leases, totaling approximately 28,500 acres, from auction.
“Sportsmen in Wyoming have awakened to the fact that the BLM is not acting in the best interests of the American people,” said Dwayne Meadows, a TRCP field representative who lives in Laramie. “While the agency’s drive to open our public lands to energy development certainly benefits big business, the policy fails to consider the needs of the average sportsman, our wide open landscapes and the fish and wildlife that depend on these places.
“Our system is dismally compromised if citizens must go to these drastic lengths – formally protesting our government’s actions – so that they can ensure a future for simple pleasures, such as hunting sage grouse and fishing for trout, that Americans have enjoyed for generations,” said Meadows.
The TRCP believes that to better balance the concerns of fish and wildlife in the face of accelerating energy development, federal land management agencies must follow the conservation tenets outlined in the FACTS for Fish and Wildlife.
Inspired by the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt, the TRCP is a coalition of organizations and grassroots partners working together to preserve the traditions of hunting and fishing.
Media Contact:
Dwayne Meadows, 307-760-6802, dmeadows@trcp.org
1/23/08
Oil and gas development also would affect big-game winter range and migration corridors
Washington, D.C. –The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) has filed a formal protest of the Feb. 5 Bureau of Land Management energy lease sale in Wyoming. The conservation coalition’s protest, which covers 125 parcels on about 150,000 total acres, includes irreplaceable sage grouse habitat and mule deer, elk and pronghorn winter range and migration corridors that would be negatively impacted by energy development.
The TRCP action considers a recent decision by the U.S. District Court in Idaho that calls on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to review the potential listing of sage grouse as an endangered species. The court reversed and remanded the agency’s “not warranted” listing decision issued in 2005 and specifically questioned the conduct and decisions of a former high-ranking Interior Department employee. If the sage grouse is listed under the Endangered Species Act, sage grouse hunters would be the first of many stakeholders to suffer from the repercussions. Numerous recent studies have documented the impacts of oil and gas development on sage grouse populations and habitat.
“The BLM should take no action that will further harm sage grouse habitat until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined if the species will be listed as endangered,” said Steven Belinda, energy initiative manager for the TRCP and a former BLM biologist. “Recent research on the impacts of oil and gas development on sage grouse concludes that development has an immediate and significant effect on the bird’s populations and habitat. American sportsmen stand to lose the most if sage grouse are declared endangered.
“What’s more, as long as the BLM persists in basing its decisions on outdated information – and some of the resource management plans that the agency uses in formulating development strategies are 20 years old – we’ll continue to see development plans being green-lighted that do not serve the best interests of fish, wildlife and our public lands,” continued Belinda.
In formulating its protest, the TRCP also used habitat information drawn from relationships built between its field staff and Wyoming’s hunters and anglers. The TRCP’s recent outreach to sportsmen in Wyoming and its last such protest, filed in November for energy leases proposed in southeastern Wyoming’s North Platte Valley, sparked widespread public outcry against the Dec. 4 BLM lease sale and incited a flurry of similar protests from sportsmen, local municipalities and government officials. As a result, the BLM announced its decision to withdraw the North Platte Valley leases, totaling approximately 28,500 acres, from auction.
“Sportsmen in Wyoming have awakened to the fact that the BLM is not acting in the best interests of the American people,” said Dwayne Meadows, a TRCP field representative who lives in Laramie. “While the agency’s drive to open our public lands to energy development certainly benefits big business, the policy fails to consider the needs of the average sportsman, our wide open landscapes and the fish and wildlife that depend on these places.
“Our system is dismally compromised if citizens must go to these drastic lengths – formally protesting our government’s actions – so that they can ensure a future for simple pleasures, such as hunting sage grouse and fishing for trout, that Americans have enjoyed for generations,” said Meadows.
The TRCP believes that to better balance the concerns of fish and wildlife in the face of accelerating energy development, federal land management agencies must follow the conservation tenets outlined in the FACTS for Fish and Wildlife.
Inspired by the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt, the TRCP is a coalition of organizations and grassroots partners working together to preserve the traditions of hunting and fishing.
Media Contact:
Dwayne Meadows, 307-760-6802, dmeadows@trcp.org
