New plans unveiled by President Donald Trump apply to greater sage grouse habitat on Bureau of Land Management lands in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nevada, California, Utah and Wyoming. <\/p>\n
Conservation groups say the plans strip protections for the greater sage grouse and put the species in even greater peril, with some threatening litigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s reckless actions will speed the extinction of greater sage grouse by allowing unfettered fossil fuel extraction and other destructive development across tens of millions of acres of public lands,\u201d said Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery president starting with Obama has screwed over these iconic Western birds and the hundreds of other wildlife species that depend on the beautiful sagebrush sea. We\u2019re not letting these dancing birds go without a fight, so we\u2019ll see Trump in court.\u201d<\/p>\n
But supporters disagree.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis resource management plan amendment is the result of more than a decade of coordination between the Bureau of Land Management and all the states within the range of the species. Utah worked collaboratively with the BLM under two administrations \u2014 through the Western Governors\u2019 Association Sage-grouse Task Force \u2014 to incorporate the most recent science in the (resource management plan) and account for local conditions important for conservation,” said <\/b>Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Director Riley Peck.<\/p>\n
Peck added the resource management plan amendment was finalized under the current administration, with minor revisions to account for remaining concerns raised by the state. <\/p>\n
The division director specifically pointed to strides made in Utah.<\/p>\n
\u201cUtah has a long history of successful wildlife management and conservation, and it continues to provide significant contributions to the science, management and conservation of greater sage-grouse. Utah also advocated for recognition of its management authority over this non-listed species,\u201d Peck said, adding that continued conservation of the bird will continue.<\/p>\n
Critics, however, assert the plans remove protections from 4.3 million acres of prime sage-grouse habitat and reduce the amount of protected habitat in Utah.<\/p>\n
They say other changes include weakening habitat protections in Nevada to allow construction of the Greenlink North transmission line, which would destroy nesting and mating grounds. The plans also remove science-based grass-height standards for nesting habitat, a shift driven by livestock-industry pressure in Nevada, California and Idaho that further threatens the birds\u2019 existence, they say.<\/p>\n
Because of precipitous population declines, greater sage grouse were deemed eligible for protection under the Endangered Species Act in the early 2010s. Instead of protecting the bird, however, critics say federal officials adopted revised land management plans in 2015 that established protections from extractive uses across the bird\u2019s range in 10 states.<\/p>\n
These protections limited where mining, oil and gas, transmission lines and other heavy industry could operate within priority habitat areas. They specified limits on the amount of permittable disturbance within these habitat areas, which were designated to protect the sensitive birds and their mating grounds, called leks.<\/p>\n