Is This The New Spotted Owl?
A Greater Sage Grouse. Photo by Terry Steele.
Take a good look at that photo.
This relatively harmless looking bird, the greater sage-grouse, may become the focal point of a new debate that could dramatically alter the economy and environment of Oregon, as well as more than a dozen other western states.
The debate could put two strongly held green values in opposition to each other. Will we have to choose between renewable energy and protecting an endangered species?
Currently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing the status of the sage-grouse to see if it should be listed under the Endangered Species Act. The process means collecting information from a variety of sources.
On Wednesday, we heard from the U.S. Geological Survey. USGS released a massive report, known as a monograph, detailing the decline of the sage-grouse. The data will be used by Fish and Wildlife as it considers the bird’s status.
The picture painted by USGS isn’t very good. The sage-grouse is found in only half of the territory it occupied before white settlers moved into the region. From 1965 to 2003, sage-grouse numbers dropped an average 2% per year. And while the population appears to have stabilized in the past two decades, some of the recent news isn’t good.
Estimates from Oregon Fish and Wildlife show a 50% decline in our state from 2005 to 2008. In Idaho, the numbers in the south central part of the state dropped 6% from 2008 to 2009.
The sage-grouse thrives in large areas dominated by sagebrush. A home range can cover 230 square miles. The USGS report says not only are we losing sagebrush habitat, but what’s remaining is increasingly fragmented into smaller and smaller sections. The number one culprit? Converting sagebrush areas into cropland.
Other factors include:
- Energy development, including wind, geothermal, oil and natural gas. Everything from turbines to transmission towers can remove small chunks of sage-grouse territory.
- Fire management, recent trends towards suppressing fires has allowed more growth of juniper and pinyon and the crowding out of sagebrush.
- Cattle grazing.
- Rural sprawl, as increasing numbers of humans move closer to wilderness areas they are taking away sage-grouse habitat.
But it’s the possible conflicts between renewable energy development and sage-grouse protection that pose the most troubling questions. The Obama administration is working hard to open up public lands as possible sites for wind farms and geothermal wells. Nine federal agencies recently signed an agreement that will speed up the process of placing transmission lines on federal lands. A decision to list the bird could dramatically slow down this development.
And here’s a tidbit that can’t be ignored. The Bureau of Land Management is responsible for about half of current sage-grouse habitat. The BLM is a grizzled veteran of the Spotted Owl wars.
