The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Decision was “arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with the law…”
The state of Colorado officially filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Colorado’s U.S. District Court against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the federal agency’s ruling to list the Gunnison Sage grouse as threatened. The listing would impose strict rules and regulations on some landowners, and local advocates working on growing the species feel the decision undermines successful federal, state and local efforts to save the bird.
In the state’s suit, Colorado is challenging the decision of the FWS to list the Gunnison sage grouse as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. It also challenges the feds’ designation of critical habitat for the bird.
The case outlines that the state has helped pursue extensive conservation efforts that have cost more than $40 million in an effort to protect the Gunnison sage grouse and its habitat.
“In addition, through the cooperative efforts of local government, federal officials, and private landowners, more than four-fifths of occupied Gunnison sage grouse habitat – 83 percent – in the Gunnison Basin includes some level of protection for the species.
“These efforts have succeeded,” the lawsuit contends. “The Gunnison Basin Population has grown to success, by over 30 percent, population targets set in 2005 by a team of conservation biologists – including experts from FWS itself.”
The suit maintains that the best available science shows the bird is not threatened throughout its range and is not likely to be at risk of extinction. The state claims the feds designated as critical habitat hundreds of thousands of acres of land unoccupied by the grouse and land that is unsuitable for habitat.
WildEarth Guardians and others have also filed two separate lawsuits against FWS claiming the Gunnison sage grouse should have been listed as endangered rather than threatened. The county commissioners are considering the best strategy of entering the legal fray.
