Stage set for feds to intervene into sage grouse conservation

“The Gunnison Basin is by far the key to survival”

The Gunnison sage grouse is in serious trouble and eventually it will get real protections from the federal government, but probably not any time soon.

After the dust had settled from a lawsuit in federal court last September, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) was taking another look at a status review for the Gunnison sage grouse and said that while the birds need protection, the money isn’t there to support an effort right now.
The questions about “if” there would be a bigger federal stake in the conservation effort for the bird, which has a large population in Gunnison County, became questions of “when” and “how.”
“It could be as soon as the next month or two or it could be six to eight months out,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Al Pfister told the Board of County Commissioners at a work session on Tuesday, January 11. “A final listing decision I’d say is highly likely no sooner than two to three years.”
The schedule depends on how much money congress gives the FWS and who is competing for those dollars, but of the candidates currently on the list, the Gunnison sage grouse is positioned near the top.
“There are no strongholds for the Gunnison sage grouse in the area. So we have a tough road to hoe ahead of us as far as managing the Gunnison sage grouse,” he said.
“Of the seven populations of Gunnison sage grouse, it is the population in the Gunnison Basin that is by far the key to survival for the species.”
When the Fish and Wildlife Service released its finding that the state of the species warranted protection, it assigned the Gunnison sage grouse a number, as it does to all species that share the status, based on the taxonomy of the species, the magnitude of the threat and the immediacy of the threat. On a scale between one and ten, with species rated as one in the most need of protection, the Gunnison sage grouse was rated a two.
The criteria for a species to be rated a level one are pretty restrictive, Pfister said, so there are just a few species with a rating of one in the country and fewer than 50 species with a rating of two.
“An assessment by the Fish and Wildlife Service of the status of that species [determines the rating] and we’ve gone through that in our region and the Gunnison sage grouse is the highest one in region six,” which is comprised of eight states, he said.
“It’s got the highest priority it can get. So depending on how much money congress gives us as an agency and how much of that comes to our particular region… and there’s only so much listing money Congress gives out each year,” he said. “We can’t do more than Congress authorizes us to do.”
When the money comes and the FWS starts its conservation planning process for the species, the county will be ready, as they’ve been planning for it for over a decade, whether they knew it at the start or not.
The county was at the table in 1995 with state and federal agencies, local stakeholders and environmental groups to discuss ways of protecting the Gunnison sage grouse the same year the bird was identified in a scientific journal as a distinct species. Two years later that group put out a conservation plan.
Since then, the group and the plan have evolved into the Gunnison Basin Sage Grouse Strategic Committee and the Gunnison Sage Grouse Conservation Strategic Plan and an Action Plan. The county has been proactive in its approach to preserving the Gunnison sage grouse and open about its hope that the effort would preclude the need for a federal conservation effort.
Now that the listing is imminent the focus is changing to one of cooperation and, hopefully, the incorporation of the conservation efforts already in place with those yet to come. With an idea of how the FWS process will move forward, the county is looking for a chance to take a seat at the table.
First the FWS has to develop a proposed rule along as well as identify the area they are going to designate as “critical habitat,” Pfister said, which is the habitat “the species needs for its survival and recovery.” Some of that habitat could be areas that aren’t currently off limits under county regulation.
But the details of where the “critical habitat” boundary will lay inside that area haven’t been worked out yet. Other unsettled parts of the conservation plan will dictate the kinds of activities that can happen in certain areas.
“Certain activities that effect the breeding and survival of the species are not authorized to take place before they go through certain processes under the Endangered Species Act,” Pfister said. “Just because a species is listed doesn’t mean that activities cease wherever that species exists.”
Pfister was candid in his recommendation that the county prepare for the federal process to avoid being consumed by it. But he wasn’t sure when that process would even start.
“I wish I could tell you when we were going to start working on it so we could be making better plans, but unless the federal government shuts down… the decision is pretty soon to happen, realizing that it isn’t going to happen overnight. At least an 18-month process has to occur.”
In the time it takes for the federal process to get moving, the county will be trying to reorganize its effort and find a way to be heard in the planning process and it’s not alone. Already the Bureau of Land Management, which manages a large part of Gunnison sage grouse habitat, has started developing a Candidate Conservation Agreement (CCA) that focuses on livestock and recreation activities on public land.
Pfister told the commissioners the CCA process is valuable because it gives entities a chance to voice concerns ahead of the federal process and those that weigh in get consideration in the FWS process. “I guess that’s the carrot out there for why people would want to do that.”
The CCA also gives the federal agencies a framework of cooperation among the stakeholders and permitting the activities on federal land that can be put to the FWS process once it begins.
“I guess the extent to which the county wants to be involved… that’s a decision for you all to make. But given the relationship of the private lands and the public lands throughout the entire basin… I would highly recommend the county’s involvement.”
Swenson said part of an upcoming discussion between the county commissioners and the Planning Commission would focus on “our land use regulations and we need to look at what areas we want to preserve for habitat and what areas we want to ‘sacrifice’ for development.
“When the finding came out, fragmentation of habitat was the number one reason [the species was warranted for listing],” she continued. “The recommendation pretty much is that Gunnison County’s got to be more proactive about how our land use planning looks and it may become something along the lines of zoning.
“We want to be able to manage the landscape, the entirety of the landscape. The bird doesn’t know what’s private and what’s public,” she said.
And Pfister commended the county for the action it’s already taken, emphasizing “the species is in some dire straights. It will be listed. Gunnison Basin has approximately three-quarters of the habitat and 85 percent of the birds. So that’s why we say if the species as a whole is going to have a chance, it’s within the Gunnison Basin.”
Commissioner Phil Chamberland asked, “If I told you Hap has a pet spotted owl, can we get the money sooner?”
The county commissioners will hold a joint meeting with the Planning Commission on Friday, January 28 to discuss if and how the county planning process might do more to steer development away from Gunnison sage grouse habitat.