BLM director says sage grouse decision a new beginning

SPARKS - The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is updating state management plans to emphasize concern for greater sage grouse and its habitat across the West, but efforts by local working groups remain key to the bird's survival, BLM Director Kathleen Clarke said Saturday.

"It takes more than rules and regulations to restore habitats," Clarke said. "One size does not fit all."

Clarke, speaking to about 300 people attending a two-day national sage grouse conference, said last month's decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not to list the high desert bird as an endangered species doesn't end concern for its plight but instead marks a new direction for conservation.

"It is clear we're at the beginning of the road," she said.

"We need to create a mentality," she said, where users of public lands "treat it as if it's their own."

The bird's sagebrush habitat is spread among an estimated 770,000 square miles in 11 states. North America's largest grouse, the sage grouse is a brown, black and white bird that weighs up to eight pounds and has a mustard-colored pouch on its throat.

Fewer than 150,000 greater sage grouse may remain. But at one time there may have up to 16 million of them breeding, strutting and nesting among the sagebrush-covered expanses of the Western United States and Canada, the government estimates.

Of the 262 million acres managed by the BLM, about 157 million involve sage grouse habitat, Clarke said. And with growing demands for multiple uses - grazing, energy, recreation and wilderness - conflicts are inevitable.

The bottom line, she said, is to ensure the land is healthy and productive.

"In order for us to enjoy it, we have to take care of it."

Many attending the conference, while hailing the cooperative approach, said a rough road looms as plans on paper are put into action.

"Implementation is always the hard part," said Bob Williams, supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Nevada.

Terry Crawforth, director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, agreed.

Crawforth, who serves on Gov. Kenny Guinn's sage grouse conservation team, said Nevada's five-year planning effort outlined a blueprint for what needs to be done.

"There really was no decision in the first phase," Crawforth said. "The next ones are going to be decision documents. It's going to impact every one of us."

Duane Coombs, manager of the Smith Creek Ranch in central Nevada, said any meaningful change will have come from those who live on and work the land.

"Nothing they say here is going to save a bird," said Coombs, who has been working with range experts and biologists on sage grouse improvements on the 240,000 acre ranch, 98 percent of which is public land allotments.

"We can't meet at the Nugget and talk about it anymore," he said. "The things I can do are on the ground."

San Stiver, a wildlife biologist and sage grouse expert with the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, said the dialogue comes at the right time.

"We still have lots and lots of sage grouse. We still have lots and lots of sage grouse habitat," he said. "Community-based conservation will allow various interests to bend but not break."

Sue Navy, an environmentalist with the High Country Citizens' Alliance in Gunnison, Colo., supports the ideal of cooperation but wonders if such efforts can bring change quickly enough.

The alliance has been part of a working group to save the Gunnison sage grouse in southwestern Colorado for 10 years. Last year, she said, they came to the painful realization that their efforts, though well intentioned, were not working.

"The bird is still declining. The threats are growing," she said.