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Environment: Tripping the bird

Sage Grouse
Brent Holmes

The diminutive sage grouse finds itself in the middle of a controversy that pits conservatives against conservatives — and threatens the future of environmental compromise

The greater sage grouse male sports a spiky brown tail, puffy white chest and leafy yellow eyebrows — like a pint-sized extra from The Neverending Story. To estimate the North American population, scientists count males hanging out at their breeding grounds during mating season. It’s led them to a tally of 425,000, some 40 percent fewer than in the 1950s, when counts started.

More disconcerting, the birds’ 173 million-acre range across the West has shrunk by 46 percent, according to wildlife biologist Pat Deibert, who coordinates the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s greater sage grouse initiative. This is a problem because the vast sagebrush ecosystem sustains hundreds of other plant and animal species as well.

Seeing the figurative canary slowly croaking in the coal mine, Fish and Wildlife determined in 2010 that the sage grouse warranted federal protection under the Endangered Species Act — and that it would get around to it after dealing with more urgent listings. A subsequent lawsuit gave the agency a deadline of September 30, 2015 to decide on the bird’s official listing.

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Starting in 2011, the impending threat of federal regulations hampering development across the 11 states where the sage grouse lives prompted stakeholders both public and private to get on board with a federal conservation plan designed to prevent endangered species listing. But no sooner was the listing averted last year than some Nevadans began protesting the final version of the federal plan, arguing it would hamper projects already underway, as well as future development. While Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval negotiated a compromise between federal expectations and state needs with U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, two counties filed a lawsuit seeking to curtail the new federal regulations. Several other counties, along with some private interests, piled on. In October, Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt joined the suit on the state’s behalf.

“Nobody wants the bird listed,” Nevada Solicitor General Lawrence VanDyke says. “Our argument is that Nevada has a better (conservation) plan, the federal plan has certain problems and we have to convince the federal court of that.”

Yet this is one of several instances in which Laxalt has pitted himself against his Republican boss, causing pundits to speculate that it’s not really about the bird at all — it’s about politics.

“(Laxalt) is adopting the ‘conservative leader of Nevada’ mantle that Brian Sandoval has never had and, by the way, does not want,” journalist Jon Ralston said during a December episode of KNPR’s “State of Nevada.” “Sandoval is a lame-duck. … (He’s) not going to be on a ballot again, in my opinion. I think Laxalt will be on a ballot again, either for reelection or perhaps for governor or U.S. Senate or something in the near or far future. So he is impervious to criticism. ... He is doing what he said he was going to do in his campaign, which is go after the federal government.”

 

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The parties that have been working on comprehensive sage grouse conservation for around 15 years certainly hope Laxalt’s legal action is more than a career move. From environmentalists to mining companies, BLM to the Forest Service, those involved lauded the federal plan as a landmark deal, one that brought opposing interests together for the greater good.

“It should be a partnership,” Deibert says. “I don’t believe litigation is always the best way to go on these things.”

The federal plan that is the subject of the recent controversy culminated from factors such as decreased federal funding and lack of sufficient regulatory mechanisms in previous plans, and from sage grouse management trends such as programs targeting high-risk habitats that offer private land owners funding or other incentives in exchange for voluntary conservation. After Fish and Wildlife was given the September 2015 deadline for a listing determination, federal agencies began coordinating on a range-wide sage grouse initiative designed to enlist as many stakeholders as possible.

Some states, including Nevada, came up with their own plans. The Sagebrush Ecosystem Council, created by Sandoval in 2012, published the Nevada Greater Sage-grouse Conservation Plan in 2014. One of critics’ complaints about the federal plan was that it didn’t sufficiently take into account the state plan. For instance, it didn’t include conservation credits that would allow developers to mitigate damage to sage grouse habitats by doing conservation projects elsewhere. The federal plan also withdraws nearly 3 million acres of land from future mineral development and other uses that endanger critical sage grouse habitat. Sandoval asked the BLM to review discrepancies between the state and federal plans, and the back-and-forth between him and Jewell ensued.
 

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Eco-schism

In their lawsuit, nine Nevada counties, three small mining companies and a rancher argued the federal plan would stanch millions of dollars worth of development and preclude previously approved projects, such as a new school in Washoe County and a water tower in White Pine.

“You may remember that when Laxalt ran, one of his main messages to rural counties was about the sage grouse being listed and ruining our way of life,” VanDyke says. “He deferred action as long as he could.” Meanwhile, the governor says his office has resolved several issues already, and that Jewell’s agents are open to addressing others that arise. “The secretary is committed to continuing to work with me and the stakeholders of Nevada to get us to where we need to be,” he says.

Still, “where we need to be” depends on one’s interests. Both Deibert and BLM officials have pointed out that the sage grouse’s removal from listing consideration depends on implementation of the federal plan — and it is federal land, after all. Laxalt, meanwhile, shows no sign of backing down.

Chris Rose, spokesman for the BLM office overseeing the plan’s implementation in Nevada, says it isn’t as ominous as people think, and the adaptability is built in. “Basically, what the federal plan did is make recommendations of how we should deal with these issues at the local level,” he says. “So, we’d look at existing resource-management plans for each district ... where sage grouse habitat wasn’t addressed, and we’d incorporate the recommendations.” That process will include public hearings, where parties with grazing rights or mineral leases on affected lands can present their concerns to their local BLMs, Rose adds.

… Unless, of course, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit win, and the federal plan is stymied. In December, the federal judge hearing the case denied the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction to stop implementation of the federal regulations. She said the parties would have a chance to argue the merits of the case at trial this month.

“If we lose those plans, either in part or across the range, we’d be put in the position of having to reconsider our listing decision,” Deibert says. “I don’t know that we’d get to ‘warranted’ (status), but it wouldn’t be helpful.” 

Desert Companion welcomed Heidi Kyser as staff writer in January 2014. In 2018, she was promoted to senior writer and producer, working for both DC and KNPR's State of Nevada. She produced KNPR’s first podcast, the Edward R. Murrow Regional Award-winning Native Nevada, in 2020. The following year, she returned her focus full-time to Desert Companion, becoming Deputy Editor, which meant she was next in line to take over when longtime editor Andrew Kiraly left in July 2022. In 2024, Interim CEO Favian Perez promoted Heidi to managing editor, charged with integrating the Desert Companion and State of Nevada newsroom operations.