Congresswoman Boebert Grouses About Protecting ‘Ugly’ Bird

This week the Bureau of Land Management finalized plans to protect the Gunnison sage-grouse, a threatened species in western Colorado and eastern Utah.

Under the plan, the BLM approves closing about 500,000 acres to future federal oil and gas leasing in each of two sites, in the Colorado River Valley and Grand Junction. That sounds like a lot, but the plan leaves about 85% of the federal lands “with high potential” for drilling open to leasing.

As for the grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), designated as a threatened species by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2014, it will have some protection across nearly two million acres under the BLM’s jurisdiction. There will be a one-mile buffer zone around Gunnison sage-grouse habitats to keep drilling and other disturbances at bay, as well as the designation of a new backcountry conservation area.

Not everyone is happy with the plans. “The Biden-Harris Administration and the radical progressives in charge of BLM are attempting to lock up our public lands from critical uses like oil and gas exploration,” Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert told Newsweek.

“Obama, Biden and Harris have tried to use the Gunnison sage grouse’s ugly, non-endangered cousin, the greater sage-grouse, to lock up more than 183 million acres in the West,” she added. 

The greater sage-grouse is only “near threatened” or “vulnerable,” depending on which agency you ask, but it’s hard to believe anyone considers either of these birds ugly. They both deploy elaborate courtship rituals, where males gather on lekking grounds to puff themselves up and fan their tails to attract females.

A 2019 survey found the Gunnison grouse numbers in Colorado down to an estimated 1,800 birds with only around 429 reproductive males. The main threat to their existence is habitat loss, which the BLM plan hopes to at least limit.

Photo credit: Helen Richardson / BLM