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Friday, November 8, 2013
Lewistown, Montana proposed sage grouse plan protects industries, not grouse
BLM plan does not go far enough
Contact: Erik Molvar 307 399-7910
Lewistown, Mont. – The Bureau of Land Management today released its Lewistown land-use plan amendment for sage grouse conservation, which was promptly panned by conservation groups.
“The agency’s proposed plan identifies priority areas for sage grouse, then protects industries in these key habitats rather than sage grouse,” said Erik Molvar, Wildlife Biologist with WildEarth Guardians. “While other plans elsewhere in the sage grouse range apply measureable standards that can improve conditions for sage grouse, reliable standards are absent from the proposed Lewistown plan.”
The Lewistown plan amendment as currently proposed would utterly fail to impose appropriate limits on energy development, a problem highlighted as a particular weakness, according to Guardians.
“The agency’s own experts recommended that Priority Habitats be closed to future leasing for oil and gas drilling and strip mining, but this is the only plan so far where there are no restrictions on future leasing. The agency ‘s preferred alternative has no limits that would prevent high-density wellfields, or requirements that keep total human disturbance of the land below the 3% threshold that grouse can tolerate, or even protective buffers around the ultra-sensitive lek sites where strutting and breeding activities take place that would prevent well drilling nearby. Most plans address these scientifically established thresholds for industrial use in some way, but the BLM has completely dropped the ball in the proposed Lewistown plan.”
The BLM preferred alternative is also short on specifics that would ensure that livestock grazing patterns maximize sage grouse habitat quality in the priority habitats that are being designated in the plan amendment.
“While there are a lot of nebulous goal statements on making livestock grazing more compatible with sage grouse, measurable standards are lacking,” added Molvar. “It’s relatively straightforward to follow the scientific recommendations and limit grazing to 25 percent of the available forage each year, or to require that at least 7 inches of grass be left behind in nesting habitat to provide the cover that grouse need to successfully nest and raise their chicks, but the plan doesn’t do this.”
“Overall, agencies need to be putting plans in place that guarantee that sage grouse will thrive inside the best remaining strongholds that exist,” concluded Molvar. “With an Endangered Species Act decision looming in 2015 for the bird, the federal government has to show that strong and effective measures have been adopted and that they give the sage grouse all the protection they need to survive and recover.”
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