WildEarth Guardians

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Federal Agency to Reconsider Protection for Sage-Grouse

Bush Administration Assents to Reassess Endangered Species Act Protection for Mono Basin Area Population
Contact: Sagebrush Sea Campaign

San Francisco, Calif. - Conservation organizations announced they have reached a settlement in a lawsuit challenging the Bush Administration's rejection of the groups' petition to list the Mono Basin area sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act. Under the settlement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to a voluntary remand of the earlier decision and must provide a new "90-day" finding on the petition by April 25, 2008.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Sagebrush Sea Campaign, Western Watersheds Project, and Desert Survivors filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in federal court in August 2007 challenging the agency's December 2006 decision not to consider listing the Mono Basin area sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act.

Conservation organizations petitioned the government to recognize the Mono Basin area sage-grouse as a distinct population segment and list the population as "endangered" or "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act in 2005. The Fish and Wildlife Service denied the petition in December 2006. The agency acknowledged that Mono Basin area sage-grouse are genetically distinct from other greater sage-grouse, but claimed the petition did not sufficiently demonstrate that the species was at risk of extinction. Conservation groups contend that the Service ignored or dismissed significant evidence of impacts from increasing habitat loss and fragmentation from development, livestock grazing, off-road vehicle use, increased fire frequency and intensity, the spread of invasive nonnative plants, and drought.

"This settlement requires the Bush Administration to go back and reassess the petition and the threats to the species," explained Lisa Belenky, staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The settlement requires the Service to do what it should have done at the outset - to fairly assess the listing petition for this imperiled species and move forward with a determination regarding listing."

"The Service ignored well documented threats to the species, cast aside our listing petition and avoided conducting a status review of the Mono Basin grouse," said Mark

Salvo, director of the Sagebrush Sea Campaign for WildEarth Guardians. "This settlement advances genetically distinct Mono Basin area sage-grouse one step closer to needed protections."

Listing under the Endangered Species Act would provide broad protection to the Mono Basin area sage-grouse including a requirement that all federal agencies ensure that any action they implement, authorize or fund will not "jeopardize the continued existence" of this population of sage grouse.

Contacts: Center for Biological Diversity: Lisa Belenky ● (415) 385-5694 (cell) Mark Salvo, Director, Sagebrush Sea Campaign, WildEarth Guardians ● (503) 757-4221 Katie Fite, Biodiversity Director, Western Watersheds Project ● (208) 429-1679