CALEB WARNOCK - Daily Herald | Posted: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 11:00 pm
In the early 1870s, Columbian sharp-tailed grouse were so numerous in Utah that "scores" were reported killed when they flew into the first telegraph wire in Cache Valley.
Today the birds are extinct along the Wasatch Front. The 11,000 Columbian sharp-tailed grouse found in a pocket in and around Box Elder County are all that remain in Utah, according to Utah Division of Wildlife Resources data.
"Today, sharp-tailed grouse in the West are leading a precarious existence," wrote DWR officials in a recent report on the birds.
On Monday, a coalition of conservation groups went to court in an attempt to change that, demanding the federal government begin the process that could give the birds protected status under the Endangered Species Act.
Led by New Mexico-based Forest Guardians, a coalition of conservation groups in November 2004 petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse under the act. Having the birds listed as federally protected endangered species would force Utah and other states to provide quality habitat for the birds, said Nicole Rosmarino of Forest Guardians.
Conservation groups had petitioned the FWS to list the grouse as an endangered species in 1995, Rosmarino said, but were turned down in 2000 after states made voluntary plans to conserve the animals -- the same year the species became extinct in Montana.
By law, the FWS had 90 days to respond to the 2004 petition. In January 2005 the FWS sent a letter to the coalition stating there was no money to study the matter and the petition did not contain enough information to warrant an emergency listing. In addition, populations of the bird have "either remained stable or possibly increased slightly over the last several years," wrote David Wesley of the FWS in the letter.
On Monday the coalition filed the suit against the FWS in federal district court in Idaho, saying the law requires the FWS to study the issue within 90 days and decide whether a more extensive yearlong study of Columbian sharp-tailed grouse populations is needed to determine if the population is dying out.
"The Columbian sharp-tailed grouse has now been waiting over a decade to be listed on the Endangered Species Act," Rosmarino said. "Other species have gone extinct while waiting."
Joan Jewett, spokeswoman for the pacific regional office of the FWS in Portland, Ore., said she was not aware that a lawsuit had been filed, but could not comment on ongoing litigation even if she had read the suit.
She said the FWS is monitoring the bird's populations. If there was evidence that grouse population gains had reversed "and needed to be protected, we would take steps to do that."
More than 80 percent of the country's remaining birds are found in Idaho, Rosmarino said. The grouse used to be found in Oregon, Washington, California, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Nevada.
According to Division of Wildlife Resources data, Utah's population of grouse was down to about 1,500 birds before much of its habitat was enrolled in a federal conservation program in 1986. Under the Conservation Reserve Program, the government paid farmers to retire farmland by planting grasses to control soil erosion.
Participation in the program was voluntary but many states have been slow to fund the program, Rosmarino said. In addition, in 2003 the Bush administration allowed haying and grazing on the land, which coincides with the time when the grouse are nesting and raising chicks, he said.
Caleb Warnock can be reached at 443-3263 or cwarnock@heraldextra.com.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D3.