Talking Energy, Sage Grouse Not Easy

A chicken-sized bird has gotten energy industry advocates and conservationists, Republicans and Democrats working together to prevent it from becoming the next native Montana species listed as endangered or threatened: the sage grouse.

“This isn’t a political winner for any politician,” said Sen. Brad Hamlett, D-Cascade. “You’re tasked with the responsibility of looking out for the best interests of the state.”

In this case, that means balancing energy interests and conservation to keep the vulnerable aviary species under state control.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has identified sage grouse as warranted for listing under the Endangered Species Act, but it’s precluded by other animals in more trouble. In other words, they aren’t ready to act yet. But a recent court settlement gave USFWS a deadline of September 30, 2015, to decide to list the sage grouse or not.

Listing the bird would halt energy and agriculture development in the bird’s core habitat areas, which exist mostly east of the Continental Divide and in southwest Montana. Senate President Pro Tempore Eric Moore, R-Miles City called the threat of listing a form of “federal blackmail” to get the state to act.

Blackmail or not, the conversation got moving. If Montana could come up with a plan, the bird would remain under state control.

The Groundwork on Protecting Ground

Gov. Steve Bullock established the Sage Grouse Conservation Advisory Council in 2013, which included conservationists, energy representatives and legislators. Lawmakers from both parties were in the group, including Hamlett and Sen. Pat Connell, R-Hamilton. With the impending deadline for the listing of the bird, all sensed the urgency.

“We’re responding to a need,” Connell said.

Bullock put their recommendations – with some amendments – into an executive order in September 2014. The executive order created the Montana Sage Grouse Habitat Conservation Program and the Montana Sage Grouse Oversight Team.

Hamlett is carrying Senate Bill 261, called the Sage Grouse Stewardship Act, the legislation implementing part of the executive order. The bill creates guidelines for the oversight team -- it will consist of department heads and a representative designated by the governor, and will report to the governor regularly. It also creates a stewardship account, which will fund both the oversight team and provide grants for conservation easements. Bullock’s budget includes a $10 million request for the stewardship account.

The bill puts into law the functions of the oversight team and the money, but the order included several rules for what could be done to land identified as “core habitat” for the birds, areas where they are most dense in number.

According to the Sage Grouse Initiative, the bird is considered an “umbrella species” because preserving the sagebrush-laden wide open spaces for the grouse helps many other species survive -- including elk and mule deer.

Rep. Janet Ellis, D-Helena, was one of the members of Gov. Bullock’s advisory council, and worked for Montana Audubon before joining the House of Representatives. She recently sat at her desk in the House with her computer opened to a Power Point presentation she’d given on sage grouse, explaining what the birds need to survive.

“They just need a ton of open space,” Ellis said. That, and sage brush, to hide from predators and sometimes to eat. “If you don’t have sage brush, you won’t have sage grouse.”

Ellis also talked about leks, the breeding grounds. During breeding season, male birds strut around, puffing out their chests to attract females.

Catherine Wightman, the habitat program and farm bill coordinator at the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said there are almost 1,000 active leks known of in Montana, most of which are east of the Continental Divide. The department monitors 84 of them.

Teams of biologists and volunteers visit a lek three times in April – during the breeding season – to count the birds. The department uses the highest number of the three for its records. Because they can’t conceivably count every single bird, the numbers mark trends, which indicate the population is declining.

Exactly why is unclear. There’s a laundry list of possible threats to the bird – roads, power poles, agricultural development, overgrazing, mining and more.

“It’s not any one thing,” Wightman said. “But it’s the cumulative effect.”

“They’re poked from a lot of directions,” Ellis said.

Taking A Page From

Wyoming’s Playbook

Some of the strategies in Bullock’s plan come from Wyoming, which currently has the only plan for sage grouse management approved by the federal government.

One of the ways Wyoming is keeping habitat available is through conservation easements. Bob Budd, executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust, said the state has secured about 300,000 acres of easements since the plan went into effect.

Bullock’s plan includes an easement portion, allowing for both temporary and permanent easements. Grants from the state account would be used to compensate landowners. In some cases, ranchers or whoever might own the land will have to agree to not convert rangeland to cropland, or take other steps to ensure grouse habitat remains intact.

Grazing, though, is just fine.

“Grazing and grouse certainly coincide well together,” Jay Bodner of the Montana Stockgrowers Association said. He added that studies show grazing has “a negligible, or even positive” impact on the bird’s habitat.

Federal regulation would likely mean restrictions or even elimination of grazing in core sage grouse areas, but Montana’s plan allows ranchers to continue business pretty much as usual.

The portion of the state plan that might have the greatest effect is the distance developers will have to keep from a lek in a core area. The ground on leks and within .6 of a mile must remain undisturbed and empty, meaning no construction, mining or any sort of land conversion can be done.

This creates a challenge for the energy industry, since many sage grouse leks and core habitat are also on land where oil or coal can be found.

Sen. Connell said the requirement will chill energy development.

“It’s going to cost them more, and it’s going to make it less convenient,” Connell said.

Bud Clinch, executive director of the Montana Coal Council, said coal development is already limited.

“We can only mine where coal is,” Clinch said.

Clinch said a crucial part of the plan allows for compensatory mitigation, which may let companies develop on the land if they can pay for restoration of another area of habitat.

Dave Galt, executive director of the Montana Petroleum Association, said that although the state plan may limit some energy activity in Montana, it’s better than having the bird listed and ceding control to the federal government. He said a listing may shut down the industry.

“The energy industry in the western United States is really at stake,” Galt said.

Hamlett said that’s what the plan is made for: keeping energy and agriculture alive , keeping the bird alive and keeping Montana in control.

“We know, because we live here, the lay of the land and what works,” Hamlett said.

His Senate desk is in the back corner on the left side, right in front of a painting of stampeding buffalo and two wolves. In the lower left corner of the painting, hiding behind a plant, is a sage grouse.

- Michael Wright is a reporter for the Community News Service at the University of Montana School of Journalism. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @mj_wright1.