Clock ticking on wildlife protections as Biden's term ends

Expansion of oil, gas drilling on public land pose risks to Colorado species

By Sophie Stuber, Telluride Daily Planet

Environmental groups and scientists are advocating for the Biden administration to finalize further protections before Donald Trump takes office. Many share the concern that Trump will revive the efforts of his first term to expand oil and gas leasing on public lands at the detriment of wildlife.

“A lot of these vulnerabilities come from how it can be easy to rewrite some of the policy guidance and manuals that the BLM staff use, and just other executive measures that Trump could take,” Ruthie Boyd, Sheep Mountain Alliance program coordinator, told the Daily Planet. “The Trump administration has a history of decreasing the acres of protection.”

At the national level, environmentalists have pushed to enshrine more wildlife into the Endangered Species Act before inauguration in January.

Federal listing under the Endangered Species Act comes with a host of protections for the species, but state officials and agricultural groups can sometimes be resistant to the added bureaucracy and land use restrictions, including required environmental study for any human activity. Federal protections can also limit grazing and add strict rules for any impact to wetlands from development.

But scientists studying wildlife included in the Endangered Species Act also can receive funding for studies, and more money is available for habitat restoration.

A few species are the current focus of environmental groups, including monarch butterflies, grizzly bears, the Pinyon jay and the greater sage grouse.

In the West, protections for sage-grouse species have been debated for decades. The Gunnison sage-grouse was listed as a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2014. The bird’s historical habitat spanned southwestern Colorado, northern New Mexico, eastern Utah and northeastern Arizona. Its existing habitat is now limited to the core Gunnison Basin population in west-central Colorado and seven disconnected satellite populations.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its Record of Decision (ROD) and Approved Resource Management Plan (RMP) Amendment for the Gunnison sage-grouse in October, which creates a framework for habitat protections on BLM lands for the bird. The BLM manages about 42% of the Gunnison sage-grouse’s current habitat, primarily located in southwest Colorado.

But the greater sage grouse, whose larger habitat spans 10 states in the American West, has become a recent focus.

In November, the Biden administration released final regulations to protect the greater sage grouse by limiting drilling and mining on federal lands and restricting clean energy development, including solar and wind, in the greater sage grouse’s habitat.

These new regulations may not survive Trump’s second term. The president-elect vowed to boost oil and gas production on public lands. The first Trump administration stripped away habitat protections established under Barack Obama on nine million acres in the West — opening up the land for oil and gas drilling.

“With Trump coming into office, there's different political ramifications for Gunnison sage-grouse versus greater sage grouse,” Kathy Griffin, CPW grouse conservation program manager, told the Daily Planet. “The greater sage grouse, particularly in Colorado and Wyoming, overlaps with oil and gas development, and that's obviously one of the Trump directives.”

Due to the finalized RMP amendment as well as their habitat zone, the Gunnison sage-grouse is less likely to be affected.

“With the Gunnison sage-grouse, we have very little oil and gas development, so that's not on (Trump’s) radar. And … the fact that the (RMP amendment) plan is finished makes it a little harder, maybe, for him to change that. Not impossible.” Griffin said.

The Gunnison sage-grouse satellite population habitat off Highway 141 south of Naturita does have some oil and gas development, but there is a good chance that no birds are left in this zone anyway.

“That's probably the biggest area that could be impacted if Trump rolls this back. But actually, right now, we're losing our birds. We think they are gone from that area. So for us, the issue would be wanting to maintain habitat in case the birds started reproducing more, or we got more birds, or CPW decided to do some translocation to that area,” Griffin said.

But there are currently no plans to relocate any birds because the habitat is not robust due to drought, Griffin added.

Beyond the grouse protections, some environmentalists and scientists worry about how federally-owned lands could change ownership under the next administration.

“A big concern is if (the Trump administration) starts selling off of federal land — turning federal lands over to either local governments, like counties or even states,”

“In Colorado, the state would probably manage those areas well if they got turned over to the state, but a state like Wyoming or Utah, which is very much oil and gas driven, there's no way a state could mitigate turning over federal lands,” Griffin said. “Once you start down that path and develop a bunch of land, it’s very difficult to turn that around, say, in four or five years.”

Heading into a new presidential administration, state and local action are critical for environmental and wildlife regulations, Boyd noted.

“There's a lot of room for community resiliency and action around the climate to continue, and I would just encourage people to stay involved and diligent, and be creative moving forward, and stubborn, but I think that it can be done,” Boyd said.

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