April 2021

Over the past month, a series of reports have documented challenges in the efforts to conserve sagebrush and sage grouse, as well as offered specific recommendations to address these challenges. In mid-March, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)—in cooperation with the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)—released a strategy for conserving sagebrush ecosystems in the West. Later in March, a USGS report was released that outlined an estimated 80% range-wide decline of greater sage-grouse since 1965 and a nearly 40% decline since 2002. Finally, in early April the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) released new frameworks for conservation of working rangelands to help address large-scale threats in sagebrush and grassland ecosystems in the West.

A U.S. District Court in Colorado recently ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) improperly approved use of Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (WRA) funds for a research project conducted by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW). The study, conducted in the Piceance Basin, was designed to evaluate the influence of reducing cougar and black bear numbers on mule deer fawn survival. The project involved removal of up to 15 cougars and 25 black bears each year from 2017 to 2019 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). The court ruled that the FWS violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) by adopting an Environmental Assessment (EA) conducted by APHIS for which the FWS was not a “cooperating agency,” issuing a Finding of No Significant Impact based on that EA, and authorizing use of WRA funds for the CPW projects.

During the March 2021 meeting of the Human Dimensions/Social Sciences Working Group at the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, attendees learned about the newly-established Conservation Social Sciences Community Network (CSSCN). The network was created to connect and support practitioners, researchers, and advocates of human dimensions and social sciences working to conserve fish and wildlife.