Farmers, ranchers, and irrigation districts are troubled by the listing of the Gunnison sage grouse as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
A large portion of the designated critical habitat for the grouse in Dolores County overlaps farm land irrigated by the Dolores Water Conservancy district.
The federal listing prohibits killing, harming, harassing, or disruption of the bird’s critical habitat, some of which is on private farm land.
“We have irrigated land and project facilities in Dolores county that overlays critical habitat, so we are concerned,” said Mike Preston, DWCD general manager. “We will do whatever is necessary to deliver water so farmers can operate as they always have.”
Phyllis Snyder farms and grazes livestock on land in southeast Utah that falls within designated critical habitat. She worries there could be pressure to alter her operation.
“We rotate wheat there and graze livestock before sending herds to the mountains,” she said, adding, “We’re concerned if they will make us change the way we do operate.”
Snyder is a boardmember of the Colorado Farm Bureau. The agency is oppose to the listing, claiming it dismisses 20 years of cooperation and partnerships to preserve grouse habitat in agricultural land.
“The ESA is a federal mandate, with no cooperation or partnership,” she said. “I’d be worried if I had a grazing permit on federal lands within the critical habitat.”
Snyder says lack of predator control has caused the decline in grouse population.
“There are thousands of magpies and crows out there that prey on eggs and chicks,” she said.
Wednesday’s announcement by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the Gunnison sage grouse would be listed as threatened is disheartening, said Colorado Cattlemen’s Association president Frank Daley.
Daley said a diverse group of stakeholders have worked tirelessly alongside private landowners and state and local government to protect habitat and rebuild populations.
“Until today, the work done to protect this species and its habitat was considered a success story,” says Daley.
“I fail to see how a “threatened” listing can improve on the candidate conservation agreement on federal lands or candidate conservation agreement with assurances on private land. Not to mention the many other conservation actions already implemented.”
