Issues

ESA session at IPAA’s midyear meeting. Interested in hearing subject matter experts discuss Endangered Species Act (ESA) issues?  At this year’s midyear meeting June 24th, IPAA will be hosting an ESA session to bring together subject matter experts and learn about how various industries are tackling ESA issues.  If you are interested in registering please contact Kristen Lingley at Klingley@ipaa.org.  A full schedule for the midyear meeting can be found HERE.

Utah Gov. Herbert stands up for state control, sage-grouse. On Tuesday, Governor Herbert (Utah) testified in Washington, D.C. regarding the role of state and federal governments in the management of national parks, public rangelands, threatened species, and forests.  In his testimony, the Governor voiced his frustration with the federal government in regard to Utah’s Greater sage grouse conservation plan. As he explains, Utah has been working to protect the bird for 15 years in partnership with local working groups composed of state and local officials, private landowners, and federal agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. These efforts, along with millions of dollars of investment, have improved the status of the sage-grouse in the state. According to his testimony:

“Many aspects of the Plan are the equivalent of those protections employed by the Fish and Wildlife Service in the event of a listing. Yet the BLM and the Forest Service now advise us that the protection of the species may require each of them to consider protective stipulations designed to be an independent response to the 2010 listing decision.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service indicated in a recent letter to the state that the Service, contrary to the state’s Plan, would work with the BLM and the Forest Service to seek protections for a particular area within Utah – which protections would cover an additional 1.5 percent of the birds in Utah. If adopted, these independent provisions, on their own, will not be sufficient to conserve the bird, will antagonize the effort to earn the necessary protections on private lands, and will only serve to toss the cooperative spirit of a joint response on its head.”

Gov. Herbert, chair of the Western Governors Association, also expressed to the committee his frustration and the frustration of other Western states with the federal government on these matters. Read Gov. Herbert’s full testimony HERE.

NWMA report reveals BLM sage-grouse conservation policy flawed. This week, the Northwest Mining Association (NWMA) released a report authored by independent biologist Megan Maxwell, regarding the Greater sage-grouse conservation measures currently recommended in BLM’s December 2011 National Technical Team Report (NTT Report). The study found these measures are not based on Best Available Science as required by the Endangered Species Act (ESA). According to Dr. Maxell’s study, the NTT report includes “significant mischaracterization of past research; methodological bias; substantial errors and omissions; lack of independent authorship and peer review; and substantial technical errors.” Read the full report HERE and NWMA’s press release HERE.

WAFWA also expresses concerns with NTT Report for sage-grouse management. The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA), a group representing all state wildlife agencies across the range of the Greater sage-grouse, also wrote a letter to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell regarding their concerns with the NTT Report for sage-grouse management. WAFWA believes the report would be a “setback to sage-grouse conservation.” From the letter:

“Applying a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach focusing solely on the NTT report is not appropriate for management of the variations that occur across the sage-grouse range.. Our concern is that using the NTT, in vacuum, would undermine sage-grouse conservation range-wide.”

Read WAFWA’s full letter to the Interior HERE.

In the News

BLM: Sage grouse areas not likely on Butte federal land. Rapid City Journal. South Dakota’s Bureau of Land Management South Dakota Field Office manager Marian Atkins told the Butte County Commission last week that it’s not likely that the federal lands in the county will have wind farms allowed if they’re in sage grouse areas.

Federal program seeks to protect both land and landowners. KFDA News. A pending federal decision could have major repercussions for area landowners -so now wildlife authorities and ranchers are trying to strike a balance between conservation and regulation. Since late last year, the lesser prairie chicken has been a candidate for the endangered species list.  And when a species is classified as “endangered,” it brings with it new and stricter federal regulations on land use.

Sage-grouse Recovery Alternative considers climate-change impacts. Beyond Season’s End, Blog. Citing sage-grouse as an umbrella species, the preservation of which implies the preservation of many other species that share its habitat, a group has formulated an alternative to Bureau of Land Management and Forest service plans to conserve and recover Greater Sage-grouse.

Recovered Arkansas Snail Removed from Endangered Species List. Kansas City infoZine. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that a unique Arkansas snail, the Magazine Mountain shagreen, is recovered and being removed from the federal list of endangered species.

Federal judge says Forest Service must consider critical habitat designations in regional forest plan guidance for lynx. Summit County Citizens Voice. The U.S. Forest Service has once again been called out for failing to live up to its legal obligations to protect endangered species, this time by a federal judge in Montana, who ruled last week that the agency violated the Endangered Species Act when it failed to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on a regional forest plan amendment.

Indian Colony adopts Elko County’s sage-grouse conservation plan. Elko Daily Free Press. The Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone South Fork Band invited residents to the South Fork Band Colony Friday afternoon for a tour of the reservation. The band council recently voted to implement a sage-grouse conservation program inspired by the Elko County Commission’s pilot program on Devil’s Gate Ranch.

Sagebrush comment period may re-open, county official says. Capital Press. Franklin County representatives say it’s likely the public comment period will re-open for listing a subspecies of sagebrush as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. County commissioner Rick Miller said attorneys for the county and for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service held a conference call May 21 regarding re-opening the public comment period for the White Bluffs bladderpod, a subspecies of sagebrush found in Washington’s Franklin and Benton counties.

Franklin County residents given more time to react in bladderpod. News Tribune. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to give residents more time to comment on the endangered species listing for the White Bluffs bladderpod, a yellow flowering plant that grows only along the banks of the Columbia River in Franklin County, said county commission Chairman Rick Miller.