The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed amendments to resource management plans in Colorado and Utah to protect the Gunnison sage-grouse by setting buffers around sensitive habitats and limiting development activities.
“This next step in the planning process will help ensure that Gunnison sage-grouse remain viable,” said BLM Colorado State Director Doug Vilsack in a statement. “We appreciate the efforts of the public and local and state governments to help inform this planning effort to provide functioning Gunnison sage-grouse habitat in their historic ranges in Colorado and Utah.”
The Gunnison sage-grouse is classified as a distinct species from the greater sage-grouse and occupies eight widely scattered and geographically isolated populations in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. According to BLM, the grouse occupies about 10% of their historical range, which once spanned the Four Corners region across Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.
The agency manages approximately 40% of Gunnison sage-grouse habitat, including 67% of the Gunnison Basin population’s habitat, the largest and most prominent population, while the other seven populations are considered satellite populations. In 2014, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service classified the Gunnison sage-grouse as a federally threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
BLM’s final environmental impact statement (FEIS) establishes a framework to conserve and enhance habitat for the Gunnison sage-grouse in 11 resource management plans encompassing 7.6 million acres of public land and 18 million acres of federal mineral estate that include occupied and unoccupied habitats across the eight current populations.
The proposed plan alternative, Alternative F, establishes a 1-mile buffer around habitat and linkage-connectivity areas. This alternative considers occupied and unoccupied areas and would extend to all lek statuses (active, inactive, historic, unknown, occupied and unoccupied). This alternative aims to manage all areas of sage grouse habitat with the objective of no net increase in surface disturbance by restoring existing disturbances and avoiding new disturbances. Livestock grazing would be mostly unaffected by this alternative, with over 675,000 acres available. Renewable energy would be prohibited, and oil and gas and mineral extraction would be mostly excluded, with only a small portion allowed.
BLM sought comments on a draft resource management plan and an EIS was released in November 2023. Alternative F was incorporated after receiving public comments.
Environmental groups were apprehensive of BLM’s preferred alternative, which was similar to Alternative F. Still, they stated it didn’t go far enough to protect the grouse’s habitat and pushed for limits on grazing and energy extraction.
Other alternatives range from a no-action alternative to maintain the status quo over 25 million acres of lands administered by BLM, other federal agencies, Tribes, Colorado and Utah, local governments and private ownership, to the most restrictive, Alternative B, which would establish a 4-mile buffer zone.
Alternative B includes two sub-alternatives (B1 and B2) for livestock grazing management actions, developed in response to recommendations from public scoping comments. Under sub-alternative B1, grazing would be eliminated, and under B2, grazing would be allowed in unoccupied areas of the sage grouse but not in occupied areas. With the exception of some recreation, all other activities would be prohibited under B2.
The FEIS said three new areas of critical environmental concern (ACEC), encompassing over 41,000 acres, would be established, and the four existing ACECs, totaling over 49,000 acres, would be maintained. Alternative B would place almost all the unoccupied and occupied grouse areas under ACECs.
This management plan differs from what BLM proposed in March regarding the greater sage-grouse.
Written comments can be submitted through the “Participate Now” option on the BLM National NEPA Register until Aug. 5 at tinyurl.com/2p9n8vm7. They can also be mailed to: BLM Director Attention: Protest Coordinator (HQ210), Denver Federal Center, Building 40 (Door W-4) Lakewood, CO 80215. — Charles Wallace, WLJ contributing editor
