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December 4, 2007

Court Reverses ‘No Listing’ ESA Decision for the Sage Grouse

BOISE – The U.S. District Court of Idaho today reversed a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not to protect the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The case, brought by Idaho-based Western Watershed Projects, challenged illegal political tampering by Julie MacDonald and other administration officials in a decisionmaking process that is required to be grounded in the best available science. In his Order, federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill vacated the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision not to list the sage grouse as an Endangered or Threatened Species and directed that listing be reconsidered.

“Sage-grouse populations have been in significant decline for decades,” Judge Winmill wrote in his opinion. “While the rate of decline has recently slowed, the sage-grouse’s habitat is being subjected to accelerating threats from invasive weeds, fires, energy development, and livestock grazing.”

Judge Winmill found that the Fish and Wildlife Service consistently ignored and excluded the opinions of expert scientists who did not agree with the agency’s conclusion that Endangered Species protections were not needed. In particular, the judge cited a range-wide Conservation Assessment, peer-reviewed by the Ecological Society of America, that found sage grouse to be in significant decline in 11 of 13 states and provinces.

“This process violates the statutory requirement that the ‘best science’ be applied,” ruled Winmill. “By improperly insulating the decision-makers from scientific input, it creates opacity when transparency is required.”

Biodiversity Conservation Alliance was one of 20 groups petitioning the sage grouse for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

“Certainly, Wyoming’s sage grouse populations are teetering on the brink of survival in many areas, and sprawling, ill-conceived gas and coalbed methane projects like the Atlantic Rim and Jonah Fields are accelerating the decline of this magnificent bird,” said Erik Molvar, Wildlife Biologist. “And while the sage grouse continues to dwindle away, the BLM is continuing to issue thousands of acres of oil and gas leases and entire land-use plans that allow industrial-scale development in our best sage grouse habitats with only the window-dressing of seasonal measures that have been proven to be completely ineffective by scientific studies.”

Other sage grouse Endangered Species petitioners included the Sagebrush Sea Project, Center for Native Ecosystems, and Forest Guardians.

“Many decisionmakers have been focusing their efforts on preventing Endangered Species listing rather than recovering the bird,” added Molvar. “Hopefully this ruling will be a wake-up call that will spur officials to move beyond talking about sage grouse conservation and actually start doing something about it.”

The judge's ruling is available from Biodiversity Conservation Alliance in pdf form upon request.