Ruling on sage grouse delayed one week by unexpected death

Sun staff and wire

Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010 | 12:04 p.m.

A key decision on whether sage grouse will be placed on the endangered species list will be delayed one week due to the death of the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The bird lives in 11 states, including Nevada, where the sagebrush that the bird needs has lost ground to invasive cheatgrass, which is susceptible to frequent burning.

The bird also is threatened by suburban sprawl, oil and gas development as well as wind energy and transmission line construction. Officials in the oil and gas, wind energy and livestock industries worry that new regulations to protect sage grouse could make their business more difficult across much of the West.

Sam Hamilton died yesterday after suffering chest pains while skiing in Colorado. The agency director had planned to announce this Friday whether or not the sage grouse would get federal protection.

The bird's population has dropped precipitously in some states in recent decades due to habitat destruction and encroaching development. The grouse has lost at least half its habitat in the western United States and Canada.

Populations in Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, Oklahoma and British Columbia have died out entirely.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled in 2007 that political pressure had tainted an earlier Fish and Wildlife decision not to list sage grouse. Last year, he gave the agency until Friday to issue a new finding.

Winmill hadn’t decided on the extension as of Tuesday morning, according to court officials.

About half of North America’s sage grouse are believed to be in Wyoming.

Conventional gas drilling in Wyoming has led to numerous wells, roads, pipelines and other facilities in sagebrush habitat. Coal-bed methane drilling in Wyoming also has created breeding grounds for mosquitoes that transmit West Nile virus, to which sage grouse have little, if any, resistance.

Sun reporter Stephanie Tavares and the Associated Press contributed to this report.