In an attempt to halt the decline of greater sage grouse across the West, the Bureau of Land Management is proposing changes to 77 Resource Management Plans at field offices in nine states that oversee 69 million acres of federal land.
The proposals are outlined in a draft management plan released on March 15. Public comment will be taken through June 13.
“Joint efforts to conserve the greater sage-grouse and its habitat led to the largest collaborative conservation effort in our history, and we are building on that work, together with our partners, to ensure the health of these lands and local economies into the future,” said BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning in a statement.
What’s proposed
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The draft plan outlines six alternatives the agency considered. The alternatives that do the most to protect sage grouse were Alternatives 3 and 6, which identify 11.13 million acres of habitat worthy of protection under a designation as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, or ACECs. In Montana and the Dakotas, more than 726,000 acres were identified as potential ACECs due to the sage grouse habitat they provide. In Wyoming, more than 839,000 acres were outlined.
Alternative 3, which has the most restrictive management in terms of development, would reduce the BLM’s flexibility to meet its multiple-use mandate, the draft plan said.
Consequently, the BLM’s preferred option in the draft plan, Alternative 5, would allow more resource development as long as compensatory mitigation is used to offset impacts to sage grouse habitat. The agency also proposes that the work to offset any damage be completed first.
Montana plans
In Montana, much of the BLM’s task under the new plan seems directed at making different field offices’ and interagency management more consistent across boundaries.
"This preferred alternative supports the ‘all-lands all-hands’ approach to sage-grouse conservation and collaboration with our partners," said Sonya Germann, state director, in an email. "There are not large changes to any of our resource programs, rather we want to emphasize what has been working and provide flexibility to respond to unique local circumstances. Specifically, livestock grazing availability remains unchanged. The BLM will continue to focus management on habitat and land health standards, evaluating effectiveness of grazing systems and range improvements at the local level."
The agency also noted that migratory birds in north-central Montana that move into Canada, and in Eastern Montana that sometimes fly to western North Dakota, should be protected for their unique behavior, albeit under different prescriptions.
The different prescriptions that can be applied to habitat include: Priority Habitat Management Areas, General HMAs, Restoration HMAs and Connectivity HMAs. Each of these HMAs would be geared to different management objectives, with Priority HMAs having the “highest value to maintaining sustainable” sage grouse populations through management to “minimize habitat loss and degradation.”
Under the preferred alternative, in the Montana-Dakotas the BLM is proposing 3.3 million acres of Priority HMAs, 1.85 million of General HMAs, 94,000 acres of Restoration HMAs and 298,000 of Connectivity HMAs. In Wyoming, 8.6 million acres of Priority HMAs, 8.98 million of General HMAs and 15,000 acres of stewardship areas are proposed.
"The alternatives outlined in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement combine the best available science, the most successful approaches in our current management, and the need to address emerging issues, to consider different ways to balance rangewide consistent management with the need to address unique conditions in parts of the range," said David Wood, a BLM conservation biologist, in an email. "Many of these changes are minor, focused on clarification and providing the flexibility to address the variable and dynamic sagebrush ecosystems."
Status
As the BLM works to ensure the continued survival of sage grouse, the draft plan also points to a somber fact, “Despite years of management attention from multiple state and federal agencies (greater sage grouse) habitat continues to be impacted and lost.”
Prior to European settlement, sage grouse habitat was estimated at more than 296 million acres. Due to their declining populations, in 2010 sage grouse were listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as “warranted but precluded” for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
“While GRSG populations experience natural fluctuations, monitoring indicates the most recent nadirs (low point of population cycles) are lower than the prior nadirs in most states,” the draft plan said. Between 1966 and 2021, the sage grouse population has declined 80% and between 2002 and 2021 fell by 41%.
According to a U.S. Geological Survey study published in 2021, the bird’s decline was more severe in the western portion of its range, especially the Great Basin, “while the declines have been less severe in eastern areas.
“Western Wyoming was the only region to show relatively stable sage-grouse populations recently,” the researchers noted. “Taken as a whole, the greater sage-grouse population now is less than a quarter of what it was more than 50 years ago.”
Causes for decline
The sage grouse’s continued decline is largely due to loss of the bird’s sagebrush habitat. A west-wide satellite analysis documented a decline of 1.9 million acres of habitat between 2012 and 2018, 1.1 million acres of which was on BLM land. Wildland fires have increasingly played a role in loss of habitat, as drought has persisted across wide swaths of the western United States.
In Montana, the sage grouse population was estimated last year at about 51,000 male birds spread across 766 leks. Leks are the birds’ breeding grounds where they can be most easily counted in the spring. In comparison, in 2010 — the year the birds were precluded for ESA protection — the state’s population was estimated at more than 61,000 on 946 leks.
In Wyoming, which contains more than 30% of all sage grouse, more than 35,000 male sage grouse were counted on almost 1,200 leks in 2012, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Eleven years later the agency’s count showed 1,700 leks with more than 18,000 males. Not all leks could be checked last year, however, due to heavy snow.
Sage grouse populations are known to fluctuate over six- to eight-year spans, so trend lines over those longer periods are what garners more attention. In Wyoming, that trend line has remained fairly flat for the past four years after declining from a peak in 2016.
Hunting
Due to a decline in sage grouse populations in 18 southeastern Montana counties, the hunting season for sage grouse could be halted there in 2024, Fish, Wildlife & Parks told hunters this winter. That will depend on counts at leks this spring. In the region, 36 males were counted at leks in 2001. Last spring that had dropped to six males.
Under the state’s adaptive harvest management plan for sage grouse, if populations are 45% or more below the long-term average for three years, more restrictive regulations are initiated.
Wyoming has documented an almost twofold increase in the number of sage grouse hunters in the past 10 years with a resulting climb in the number of sage grouse shot. The 2022 harvest was estimated at more than 11,600 birds. Last year, northeastern Wyoming was closed to sage grouse hunting. This year, sage grouse hunting in the state will require a free permit to allow Wyoming Game and Fish to better survey sage grouse hunters.
Although hunting isn’t believed to threaten sage grouse populations, an increasing number of ravens preying on sage grouse nests was cited by the BLM as a concern, especially in areas where habitat conditions are poor.
Reactions
Montana conservation groups used the released of the draft plan to advocate for protections of southwest Montana’s sagebrush ecosystem, overseen by the Dillon Field Office.
“Speculative oil and gas development does not belong alongside family ranches and on our public land in the Big Hole, Beaverhead County, and other places in Montana where there is virtually nothing to drill,” said Frank Szollosi, executive director of the Montana Wildlife Federation.
Likewise, the Upper Missouri Waterkeeper’s executive director, Guy Alsentzer, cited southwestern Montana’s sagebrush lands as in need of protection from development.
“Land management plans and decisions must reflect reality, not just appease oil and gas special interests at the expense of the rest of us,” he said in a statement.
National conservation groups were split, with many praising the new document for its updated scientific information, while others said more should be done in the face of the birds’ continuing decline.
“Stronger plans are needed to provide the grouse with a better chance of survival,” said Steve Holmer of American Bird Conservancy. “Areas of Critical Environmental Concern would offer hope that some habitat will be protected, but the preferred alternative doesn’t designate them, and will do little to improve recovery of the sage grouse, or to make a meaningful contribution to fighting climate change.”
Comments on the draft plan can be submitted online, or by mail to: BLM Utah State Office, ATTN: HQ GRSG RMPA, 440 West 200 South #500, Salt Lake City, UT 84101.