Sage Grouse Not Protected for Now

December 3, 2005 -- The New York Times recently reported that a team of Interior Department biologists has recommended that the sage grouse is not threatened with extinction and does not, for the moment, need to be protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The director of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services, Steve Williams, must make the final decision about whether to put the bird on the endangered list by Dec. 29.

In recent years, various states, private landowners and scientists formed local and regional partnership to improve conditions for the grouse. A few weeks ago, the Interior Department?s Bureau of Land Management, the largest single landowner in the West, which controls about half of the 258,000 square miles of existing sage grouse territory, announced its own conservation plan.

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