UPDATE!  We have settled this case challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s April 2006 decision not to list the highly imperiled Gunnison sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act.  The agreement requires the agency to prepare a new listing decision by June 30, 2010.  The USFWS now admits that its April 2006 denial of Endangered Species Act protection to Gunnison sage grouse was tainted by interference by former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Julie MacDonald and other Bush Administration officials.  So, the Agency is back at the drawing board and we hope their new decision will be based on science and not politics.

HISTORY

Joining forces with San Miguel County, Colorado and nine other organizations, on November 14, 2006 we filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision not to give protected status under the Endangered Species Act to the Gunnison sage-grouse, a highly imperiled species that once ranged throughout several southwestern states but which is now relegated to eight small, isolated populations in Colorado and a portion of Utah.  Audubon has identified Gunnison sage-grouse as among the ten most endangered birds in the United States.  The Endangered Species Coalition also released a report in December 2008 listing Gunnison sage-grouse as one of the most imperiled species in the country.  Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar released a report in March, The State of the Birds 2009, that found that western deserts and grasslands-home to Gunnison sage grouse and other sensitive species-are among the most degraded habitats in the country.   This is our third lawsuit to protect the bird. Both previous lawsuits were resolved in the bird’s favor.

The Gunnison sage grouse is at the center of a recent controversy involving the Department of the Interior’s Deputy Assistant Secretary, Julie MacDonald, and her practice of running roughshod over the decisions of Fish and Wildlife Service biologists and field staff to protect some of the nation’s most imperiled species, such as the grouse.  Bowing to the political interests of development and industry, MacDonald has repeatedly ignored scientific findings recommending species protection in a number of WELC cases in the past, including the greater sage-grouse and the Gunnison sage-grouse.  MacDonald’s practices were recently exposed in an Inspector General report, which found that not only has MacDonald repeatedly interfered with the pro-protection recommendations of agency staff in order to please political friends of the Bush Administration, but that she has been a “bully” and highly unprofessional in doing so. Download the Inspector General’s report.

Attorney: Geoff Hickcox