The Bureau of Land Management announced last week updated plans for access to public lands for “responsible” energy and mineral development across Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas, Nevada and California, Utah and Wyoming. However, the plan has those working to protect the West’s most iconic bird looking to the courts to stop incursions into greater sage grouse habitat.

The plan gels with President Donald Trump’s Unleashing American Energy Executive Order written last January and the Interior Departments National Energy Independence Order which directs the “removal of impediments imposed on the development and use of our nation’s abundant energy and natural resources by the Biden administration’s burdensome regulations.”

“We are strengthening American energy security while ensuring the sage grouse continues to thrive,” said Acting Bureau of Land Management Director Bill Groffy. “Healthy sagebrush country powers our communities, sustains wildlife and supports the economies that make the West strong.” 

Groffy is a former Colorado Oil and Gas Association executive, serving as senior director of legislative and regulatory affairs for the Denver-based organization.

“The updated approach makes more acres available in some areas for development than the 2015 plans allowed while continuing to protect key habitat across approximately 65 million acres of sagebrush lands that sustain more than 350 wildlife species,” the BLM announced Dec. 22.

The BLM incorporated feedback received during public protest and governor consistency review periods before finalizing the decisions. Plans for Colorado and Oregon were completed earlier this year. They also reported that the plans were developed in “close partnership with Western governors and state wildlife managers.”

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon praised the new plan in a press release shortly after the BLM decision was made public, saying “I’m glad to see the BLM’s plan affirms this Executive Order after a collaborative process with the State.”

“Wyoming has consistently advocated for a finalized greater sage grouse [Resource Management Plan Amendment] that recognizes the state’s management authority over the species utilizing the best-available science,” Gordon said. “Wyoming has been a leader in the sage grouse conservation for six decades, and the State of Wyoming’s Executive Order Greater Sage-Grouse Core Area Protection strategy has spanned three Governors in its foresight to have a state-lead conservation strategy.”

However, the number of sage grouse has plummeted by 80% since 1965 across the iconic dancing bird’s 11-state western range, according to a report published by the U.S. Geological Survey, the science agency for the Department of the Interior. Half of that decline has happened just since 2002, the agency reported.

The BLM reports greater sage grouse are in sharp decline. Populations once in the millions now number fewer than between 200,000 and 500,000, according to the National Audubon Society, largely due to habitat loss exacerbated by drought, increasing wildfires and the spread of invasive species. One habitat restoring activity the BLM has done this year is to reseed the Robertson Draw Fire zone.

In an effort to restore critical sagebrush habitat lost in the 2021 Robertson Draw Fire, the Bureau of Land Management earlier this year completed an aerial sagebrush seeding operation over thousands of acres of public lands south of Red Lodge. The project, conducted in partnership with private contractors and local land management agencies, is a key step in stabilizing the landscape, preventing invasive species spread, and supporting wildlife recovery, the agency reported.

The Robertson Draw Fire burned more than 29,000 acres across Carbon County, impacting sagebrush steppe habitat essential for mule deer, pronghorn and greater sage grouse. The BLM awarded a contract to an “experienced” aerial seeding company. The contract funded the distribution of locally sourced Wyoming big sagebrush, silver sage, and black sagebrush to seed over approximately 8,100 acres of priority areas identified in BLM’s post-fire assessment.

“Restoring sagebrush cover is critical for wildlife that rely on this ecosystem. The Robertson Draw area provides important seasonal habitat for big game species and supports a variety of birds, including sage grouse, which depend on sagebrush for food and cover,” the Bureau said in an April press release.

Local ranchers and conservation groups have also supported the effort, according to the agency, recognizing the role of sagebrush in preventing erosion and maintaining watershed health.

Without intervention, burned landscapes are at risk of invasion by cheatgrass, an aggressive nonnative species that increases fire frequency and threatens native plant communities.

The response

Conservation organizations are livid about the new plan as it strip protections for the imperiled species on about 50 million acres of federal public lands across eight western states. Previous proposals over the past decade were intended to prevent extinction of the bird.

“Trump’s reckless actions will speed the extinction of greater sage grouse by allowing unfettered fossil fuel extraction and other destructive development across tens of millions of acres of public lands,” said Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Every president starting with Obama has screwed over these iconic Western birds and the hundreds of other wildlife species that depend on the beautiful sagebrush sea.”

The change in habitat strategy will likely end up in court, as the litigious NGO promises to sue the Trump administration.

“We’ll see Trump in court,” Spivak said.