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Sage-grouse decision coming

BLM sides with residents to ward off federal listing

DOVE CREEK – Residents of Dolores County showed up in force during meeting with federal land managers to resist listing the beleaguered Gunnison sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act.

In this case, the Bureau of Land Management has their back.

A range-wide amendment to land plans benefiting the sage-grouse is being drafted and is required for 11 of the BLM districts in southeast Utah and Southwest Colorado that have potential habitat.

“We’re not the Fish and Wildlife Service,” Leigh Espy, a BLM manager, told a crowd of 60 citizens. “Listing is not our call. But 42 percent of (sage-grouse) habitat falls on BLM, so we’re working to give them a reason not to list by showing we have adequate protection measures in place.”

Public comment for an Environmental Impact Statement being conducted on the proposed BLM amendment goes until Friday. What the additional conservation measures will be is not determined. But EIS documents point to reducing the threat of habitat fragmentation from roads, development and also from predation.

At the meeting held earlier this month, Espy said the changes would not affect management of private land, but there was mistrust from the audience on that point. Property owners neighboring BLM could be indirectly affected by new land-management practices.

Better control of predators, like coyotes, that prey on sage-grouse is needed, said Dolores County Commissioner Ernie Williams.

“Colorado Parks and Wildlife needs to be pressured by the BLM to look at the predator problem and take more action on it,” he said.

Energy development is blanketed by critical habitat, said an industry representative, a concern for the local economy.

New leases for gas and oil development will be subject to the new regulations, Espy said, and will be applied through the permit process.

Dolores County is heavily farmed and includes substantial gas and oil development, limiting ideal sage-grouse habitat. Gunnison sage-grouse require large expanses of sagebrush for cover and food as well as healthy wetland and riparian ecosystems. About 4,621 sage-grouse live among seven separate populations in Southwest Colorado and Southeast Utah. The largest population – 4,000 – inhabits the Gunnison Basin, north of Dolores County.

John Humphrey said, “Were the second poorest county in the state; we don’t need more stumbling blocks to our industrial and agricultural economy. Why threaten a way of life that impacts thousands of residents?”



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