WASHINGTON— The Bureau of Land Management’s “Greater Sage-Grouse Rangewide Planning” was released today and lays out the agency’s intentions for 65 million acres of the bird’s habitat on public lands but falls far short of what science says the birds need to avoid extinction.

Conservation groups expressed alarm at the double-whammy of weak plans and the likely threats posed to the sage grouse by the incoming presidential administration’s “Drill, baby, drill,” agenda.

“It’s clear that these compromise plans aren’t going to save sage grouse from their continued downward spiral towards extinction,” said Greta Anderson, deputy director of Western Watersheds Project. “Letting anti-conservation states and extractive interests get their way above all else is something we expect to have to fight in the next administration, and it’s disappointing that this is what the Biden administration is leaving us with as well. What a squandered opportunity.”

The proposed plans fail to fix problems identified in the draft plans, including failing to provide scientifically adequate buffers for habitat that grouse need to reproduce, nest and raise chicks, disturbance caps or even consistent definitions of which habitats need protecting. Wyoming, where the majority of the birds remain, continues to have weak protections. The plans also fail to provide meaningful and enforceable standards to ensure livestock grazing doesn’t deplete vegetation essential for sage grouse survival.

Currently, sage grouse plans finalized in 2015 are in effect. Since these plans went into effect, sage grouse populations have seen major declines throughout their range.

“This plan will continue the sage grouse’s grim progress towards extinction,” said Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The small improvements made are still grossly inadequate to recover the species and don’t reflect the abundance of science telling us what’s necessary to save the sage grouse. It’s too bad it took years to get to this deeply flawed plan.”

“We are disappointed that the plans provide the highest level of protection for only 4 million acres of priority sagebrush habitat,” said Steve Holmer of American Bird Conservancy. “The 2015 plans protect 11 million acres of sagebrush focal areas so this is not a step forward given the history of exceptions routinely being granted to drill in priority grouse habitat.”

“These plans fail to address the inadequacies of the 2019 greater sage-grouse plans that landed the administration in court,” said Sarah Stellberg, a staff attorney with Advocates for the West.