The sage grouse is known for its extremely complex mating rituals.
(Mirror Daily, United States) – Several environmental groups aren’t pleased with current grouse conservation plans. According to their representatives, the programs feature loopholes that allow every state to engage in activities that favor the economy more than the land bird.
Apart from being on the label of a popular brand of Scotch whiskey, the Centrocercus urophasianus, or as most people know it, the sage grouse, is mostly known for its complicated mating rituals. As the common name suggests it, the grouse likes to build its nest around sage bushes and also feast on its seeds.
The land bird is usually found in the western parts of the United States and southern Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada. Due to increased habitat loss, the sage grouse in now listed as near threatened by a number of international and national organizations.
This is the primary reason why environmental groups aren’t pleased with current grouse conservation plans. They feel like every state tried to introduce a sort of loophole in the bill that was designed to protect the natural habitat of the sage-loving bird.
For example, a spokesperson if the Guardians of the Wild Earth association, Erik Molvar, denounced Wyoming for intentionally creating loopholes that favor the exploitation of gas and oil, Nevada for geothermal power and Oregon for wind farms. Also, every state permitted the intentional creation of a gap that allows transmission projects.
The Interior Department doesn’t agree with the environmental association claiming that each new governmental rule was crafted individually and in partnership with local and state authorities.
Some individuals are beginning to contest the contestations of the environmentalists claiming that they are much too focused on a bird species that is not even endangered, and forgetting that each state has to provide energy and jobs for its inhabitants. This only served to enrage the groups even more.
Moreover, the activists didn’t just sue the Obama administration and every local and state authority, but the United States Wildlife and Fish Association, as well. They are claiming that the association exaggerated the estimates of wild sage grouse populations and ignored the threats that the land birds are facing.
A spokesman for the US Wildlife and Fish Association, Scott Flaherty, declared that he is not able to comment on the litigations, but that the service did analyze the necessity of a major conservation plan for the sage grouse and deemed it unnecessary.
But the environmental groups aren’t pleased with current grouse conservation plans and they are suing everybody in their path to make that clear.
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