Grazing, BLM inaction threaten greater sage grouse, report contends

As Wyoming, the federal government and green groups clash over livestock grazing’s effect on greater sage grouse, conservationists say grazing has unacceptably degraded more than a third of U.S. BLM land in Wyoming.

Two conservation groups made that assertion after studying Bureau of Land Management data on the health of 17.3 million public acres in Wyoming. The BLM lists whether grazing allotments meet the agency’s landscape health standards and, if they don’t, why.

Fully 41% of BLM allotments analyzed by the agency in Wyoming don’t meet standards because of commercial livestock grazing, Public Employees for Environmental Ethics and Western Watersheds Project say.

The groups released their findings last week, saying overgrazing imperils the sagebrush dwelling bird which is “flirting” with being listed as a threatened or endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A 19-page summary and an online interactive map describe the issue across the West and also break down the analysis by state.

Wyoming stock growers and sage grouse managers contest such conclusions, saying the state is stewarding the grouse well under Gov. Mark Gordon’s Core Area Strategy. Drought and wild horses are among the forces that contribute to the impacts, they say.

The tussle comes as the BLM and Biden administration seek reforms through an ongoing West-wide greater sage grouse plan , revised Public Lands Rule and a new Rock Springs Area Resource Management Plan .

Those plans’ updates could, if improved, resolve deficiencies that the BLM admits to and benefit wildlife, conservationists say.

The BLM classifies 41% of the land in Wyoming as not meeting its own standards, said Chandra Rosenthal, director of Rocky Mountain PEER in Denver.

For example, the BLM ranks the 950,000 public acres in the sweeping 2.1 million acre Rock Springs grazing allotment landscape health standard as being “not met — livestock” in 2024. That means livestock overgrazing is a significant cause, the groups said.

“I have to take those agency determinations seriously,” Rosenthal said. “The BLM should be proactively restoring and nurturing and reviving the land. I think we need to reduce livestock numbers on failing allotments.”

Grouse count upticks will continue

Grouse today are doing well, said Bob Budd, head of Wyoming’s Sage Grouse Implementation Team that oversees Gordon’s executive order designed to protect the species. A key indicator — the annual count of male grouse strutting on breeding ground leks — is expected to be released by Wyoming Game and Fish Department soon.

“We’ve had a good couple of years,” Budd said. “I think that will continue.”

The recent warnings by conservationists about rangeland health, however, are “very simplistic” and “a little disingenuous,” he said.

“Is it because of livestock or perpetual drought [or] because they didn’t get the [range management] prescription right,” he asked. The impact of wild horses and burros hasn’t been adequately addressed, Budd added.

Range condition and health are complex, Budd said, and long-term changes may be difficult to reverse. One of those changes has been the large-scale decades-long decrease in perennial bunchgrass paired with the increase in rhizomatous plants (those with underground stems) that are less favorable to greater sage grouse.

“You may cross to a different type of forage or vegetation [to the point] that you can’t go back,” Budd said of changes in the sagebrush sea.

Across the West, for example, Native perennial bunchgrasses — clumps of sagebrush understory that provide cover for grouse — are decreasing because of “historical overuse by sheep, cattle, and horses,” according to a long-term scientific review .

But pegging landscape health to bunchgrass or another single factor may be naïve, Budd said.

“People oversimplify this all the time,” he said, critiquing the idea that “if you get rid of cattle that will result in this magical change on the landscape.”

In fact, “there are countless reasons and they are interrelated,” he said of landscape changes. Until they are sorted out “you’re chasing your tail.”

Budd agrees that Landscape Health Standards are a foundation for greater sage grouse conservation, but not the last word. An area could fail the standards but also provide adequate habitat for the bird, he said.

Nevertheless there may be cases where a grazing allotment is stressed and “you have to rest it.”

The Wyoming Stock Growers Association believes the pending new federal plan for greater sage grouse (Greater Sage-Grouse Rangewide Planning Draft Resource Management Plan Amendment and Draft Environmental Impact Statement) should be tailored to specific states. Doing otherwise “ignores the variability of resources and is unacceptable,” the association told the Wyoming Legislature’s Select Federal Natural Resource Management Committee in June.

“Grazing permittees/lessees currently strive to meet rangeland health standards,” the stock growers’ letter states. Among other mistakes, the BLM attempts to link grouse predation on habitat conditions, “failing to recognize and address the direct need for predator control.”

Historic 80% decline

The effects of commercial livestock grazing are visible and impactful, said Josh Osher, Public Policy Director for Western Watersheds Project.

“A lot of times the [riparian] green zones are dramatically shrunken,” he said of allotments that fall short. “They don’t have the streamside vegetation” while upland tracts of overgrazed range lack “a large diversity of plants.”

Sage grouse require between 7-10 inches of residual grass height for successful reproduction, Osher said. With livestock overutilization, “you don’t get the cover to hide in and nest in.”

The plight of greater sage grouse across the West is troubling, scientists say. Greater sage grouse populations declined nearly 80% between 1966 and 2021 and 41% from 2002-2021, according to federal scientists’ reports in the ongoing federal environmental review of grouse management.

The BLM’s problem is due in part to a loophole in its landscape rules, conservationists say. Rules allow the agency to renew 10-year grazing permits without assessing range health, according to PEER and Western Watersheds.

Congress allowed allotments to be renewed without review as a short-term fix, the conservationists say. But the practice is now institutionalized, with many allotments being renewed for three decades without oversight.

“This problem was created decades ago in large part by Congress’ failure to fund agencies to carry out their duties,” Osher said. “Either we have enough resources to manage grazing or [we have] less grazing.”

Even the agency’s ongoing effort to revise greater sage grouse management falls short, he said.

“We believe it is the responsibility of the BLM to manage for an abundance of sage grouse and recover the population,” he said. Instead, “they’ve given up.”

The report’s findings

The BLM adopted Landscape Health Standards in 1995 “to make it clear that maintaining rangeland health must take precedence over land use” PEER stated in its comments on federal plans to update greater sage grouse protections.

In Wyoming, the agency manages allotments across 17.2 million acres and has assessed landscape health on 14.3 million of its total of 18.4 million acre public holding in Wyoming, PEER explains on its web page. All health standards are met on 5.9 million acres. Standards were not met on 5.8 million acres — 41% of the acres assessed — due to livestock. Standards were not met on 2.8 million acres for other reasons. Reviews have not been completed on 2.9 million acres.

“Wyoming has shown improvement in evaluating its allotments,” PEER stated, “reducing the  proportion of unassessed allotments from 44% in 2019 to 36% in 2023.”

BLM officials in Wyoming did not respond to emails seeking comment on this story.

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