A more than two-decade old, hyper-local sage grouse program in Wyoming has ended.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) retired the Sage-Grouse Local Working Groups (LWGs) on Jan. 31, according to a press release. It’s apparently due to funding and structural changes, but those involved with Wyoming’s sage grouse restoration efforts say local input will still be sought after.
The LWGs came about in 2004, one year after the Wyoming Great Sage-Grouse Conservation Plan came about.
The plan got the ball rolling on Wyoming’s efforts to avoid federal action on sage grouse. The bird has flirted with an endangered species listing for decades. A listing would potentially change how much of Wyoming’s sage grouse habitat can be used – a big concern for the energy industry, agriculture and recreators.
The eight LWGs around the state were tasked with localizing conservation strategies to boost sage grouse numbers and habitat.
And it worked.
According to WGFD, the groups were key for informing 377 sage-grouse conservation projects.
“Wyoming has invested millions of dollars in habitat, conservation easements and other things that preclude the need to list the bird,” Bob Budd, who chairs Wyoming’s Sage Grouse Implementation Team (SGIT). “And so the local working groups at that time were engaged in prioritizing where those kind of actions should take place.”
Budd said as the state has crafted and recrafted its map of sage grouse habitat and core areas, which limit energy development, he’s personally relied on the LWGs.
“I sat down with those groups and said, ‘Okay, is this right or wrong?’ And they would jump in,” Budd said. “I can remember one where they said, ‘Well, no, that's completely wrong. What you're looking at right here is a cliff there. There's no habitat. It shouldn't be included.’ And that happened time and time and time again.”
But Budd feels confident that input won’t go away. He said the state-level sage grouse team can still lean on those folks.
“So it's just a matter of not having formal designation of those local working groups,” he said.
Budd said the funding model for LWGs changed in 2018 when the Legislature pulled back funding. That meant the money had to come directly from WGFD, which primarily comes from things like hunting and fishing fees.
“When the Legislature was no longer a participant in allocating some of those [LWGs] funds, that changed pretty dramatically,” Budd said. “It couldn't be sustained at the same level.”
He said over the last few years, the LWGs have been meeting less and less. Ending the formalized effort wasn’t a “terrible surprise.”
As for him, the SGIT is still quite busy. They are updating Wyoming’s Sage-Grouse Executive Order to reflect the Trump administration’s federal plan finalized in December. Some conservation groups fear the federal plan rolls back too many protections for the bird. But Budd feels confident in it. He said the feds relied on Wyoming’s very own developed map of protections.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) acknowledges on its website that sage grouse populations are in “sharp decline.”
