Environmentalists Don't Want the Sage Grouse to Be the Next Spotted Owl

A century ago, millions of the puffy-chested birds known as greater sage grouse lived across the western U.S. The incursion of cattle ranchers, developers, and oil drillers into brush-covered mountain areas decimated the population, which today numbers no more than 500,000 birds and may be less than half that. Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering whether to list the species for protection under the Endangered Species Act. That would severely restrict oil and gas exploration, as well as other commercial activities, in the birds’ habitat, which covers an estimated 165 million acres in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, and seven other states.