In a scathing rebuke of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as former Bush appointee Julie MacDonald, a federal judge in Boise has thrown out a 2005 decision by the federal government against protecting the greater sage grouse as threatened or endangered.
In his Tuesday, Dec. 4, ruling, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill said Fish and Wildlife Service officials ignored the "best science" in rejecting petitions to list the greater sage grouse under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Appealing that decision was Hailey-based conservation organization Western Watersheds Project, one of numerous groups that filed the original petition for listing in 2003.
On Thursday, the organization's executive director, Jon Marvel, said his group will ask Winmill to require the Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider the sage grouse listing as soon as possible. Marvel said that while Winmill's decision doesn't include a timeline for when this action must take place, he's confident the judge will agree to the request.
"The judge was pretty disgusted," he said. "I don't think he has very much patience with them."
Marvel said a likely timeframe set out by Winmill would order the Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider the sage grouse listing question within four to six months, "so that they don't take as long as they want."
In his ruling, Winmill particularly zeroed in on what he characterized as the "inexcusable conduct" of MacDonald, a former deputy assistant interior secretary who left her position last May after a stinging report looking into her activities was released by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Inspector General.
A civil engineer by training, she "was neither a scientist nor a sage grouse expert," Winmill wrote in his ruling.
The range of the sagebrush-dependent greater sage grouse, which today exists in 11 states, including areas of southern and eastern Idaho, is about half of what it once was, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The species can still be found throughout southern Blaine County.
Factors that have been attributed to the continuing decline of the chicken-sized bird include widespread infestations of noxious weeds, more frequent and larger wildfires, and extensive oil and gas development in places like Wyoming and Colorado, and livestock grazing.
For these reasons, both the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service have listed the greater sage grouse as a sensitive species across its entire range, Winmill noted in his ruling.
Continuing, the judge said federal law requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to use the best science to determine if a species warrants listing as an endangered or threatened species.
However, upon reviewing the agency's decision, Winmill noted three flaws in its decision-making process. He said that while the Fish and Wildlife Service consulted with experts, the agency excluded them from the listing decision.
Further, the judge wrote that the Fish and Wildlife Service created no detailed record of the experts' decisions and ignored that portion of their opinions that were preserved on the record.
"This process violates the statutory requirement that the 'best science' be applied," Winmill stated. "By improperly insulating the decision-makers from scientific input, it creates opacity when transparency is required."
Further into in his 35-page ruling, Winmill leveled his barrage of criticism against MacDonald.
In seemingly sarcastic language, Winmill wrote that the former Bush appointee "had a well-documented history of intervening in the listing process to ensure that the 'best science' supported a decision not to list the species."
Continuing, he wrote "her tactics included everything from editing scientific conclusions to intimidating FWS staffers. Her extensive involvement in the sage grouse listing decision process taints the FWS's decision and requires a reconsideration without her involvement."
Winmill's rebuke of the former deputy assistant interior secretary is just the latest in a recent string of revelations suggesting improper meddling by MacDonald. Newspapers across the country have widely reported on her controversial tenure at the interior.
Most controversial has been her alleged association with seven cases where it has been reported that she improperly influenced endangered species decisions. These included decisions affecting the white-tailed prairie dog, the Preble's meadow jumping mouse and the Canada lynx, the latter of which exists in the more heavily timbered and remote portions of central and northern Idaho.
Judge Winmill's decision comes at the same time as biologists with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game this year reported a significant downturn in the number of greater sage grouse bagged by hunters in the state.
"We've seen the lowest harvest in 40 years," the regional supervisor for the Fish and Game's Magic Valley Region David Parrish said last September.
While Fish and Game officials are not sure why the bag numbers were down, they noted that West Nile virus and the severity of the summer's fires, which destroyed critical habitat, may be factors. Two fires that burned large areas of sagebrush habitat last summer included the 45,862-acre Red Bridge Fire near Shoshone and the massive 600,000-acre Murphy Complex Fire that burned both sides of the Idaho-Nevada state line south of Twin Falls.
"Without sagebrush they are not very successful at reproducing," Parrish said. "We've lost significant reproducing area in the Murphy Complex."
Parrish said his department counts leks, or breeding areas for the birds, in spring, and numbers plugged into their long-term database are not good.
"We've noticed a downward trend this spring," he said.
Still, Parrish said control over sage grouse management is better left in the hands of local agencies than in Washington, D.C.
A decision by a federal judge in Boise will require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its decision to not list the greater sage grouse under the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act. The sage grouse occupies portions of eastern and southern Idaho, including southern Blaine County.
