Sage Grouse - Status

Status

Residential building and energy development have caused the Sage grouse population to decline from 16 million 100 years ago to 200,000 today..

This species is in decline due to loss of habitat; the bird's range has shrunk in historical times, having been extirpated from British Columbia, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico. Though the sage grouse as a whole is not considered endangered by the IUCN, local populations may be in serious danger of extinction. In May 2000, the Canadian Species at Risk Act listed the Centrocercus urophasianus phaios, formerly found in British Columbia, as being extirpated in Canada. The presence of subfossil bones at Conkling Cave and Shelter Cave in southern New Mexico show that the species was present south of its current range at the end of the last ice age, leading some experts to project that the species could become increasingly vulnerable as global climate change increases the humidity in semiarid regions.

In the United States, the species is a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act, even though under the George W. Bush Administration, then-deputy secretary of Fish and Wildlife and Parks Julie A. MacDonald ruled that the sage grouse did not need protection. In December 2007, following MacDonald's abrupt resignation and an internal investigation, a court in Iowa overturned her decision, citing the "inexcusable conduct of one of its own executives...who was neither a scientist nor a sage grouse expert." According to the court's ruling, MacDonald had a "well-documented history of intervening in the listing process."

A petition was signed by American Lands Alliance, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Native Ecosystems, Forest Guardians, The Fund for Animals, Gallatin Wildlife Association, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Hells Canyon Preservation Council, The Larch Company, The Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, Oregon Natural Desert Association, Oregon Natural Resources Council, Predator Defense Institute, Sierra Club, Sinapu, Western Fire Ecology Center, Western Watersheds Project, Wild Utah Project, and Wildlands CPR.

In 2010, after a second review, the Department of the Interior assigned the sage grouse a status known as "warranted but precluded," essentially putting it on a waiting list (behind more critically threatened species) for federal protection.