The Bureau of Land Management’s preferred choice for Gunnison sage-grouse habitat protection falls short, environmental groups contend. Meanwhile, Montrose County’s natural resources director says the agency needs better support for success and continued collaborative efforts.
The Gunnison sage-grouse inhabit a small section of Montrose County, a satellite population called the Cerro Summit-Cimarron-Sims Mesa group. The bird, which also is found in several other Colorado counties — with the largest population in the Gunnison Basin — and in Southeast Utah, is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act; ongoing human development and habitat fragmentation are seen as critical drivers behind decreasing population numbers.
As part of efforts to conserve the bird, the BLM recently released an updated draft Resource Management Plan amendment and environmental impact statement to incorporate habitat protections and management decisions as identified in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2020 Final Recovery Plan. That plan defined occupied habitat (where Gunnison sage-grouse breeding occurs, or is known to have occurred), and unoccupied habitat (areas formerly occupied by the species that still have appropriate habitat features to support the bird).
The BLM’s prior draft plan and environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Gunnison sage-grouse was released in 2016, but was placed on hold and ultimately canceled when the USFWS announced its forthcoming recovery plan.
Read more on the Montrose Daily Press.
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