Press Releases

Washington, D.C. (November 12, 2014) – Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced their decision to list the Gunnison Sage Grouse under the Endangered Species Act.  Western Caucus Co-Chairs Steve Pearce (NM-02) and Cynthia Lummis (WY-At Large) along with Western Caucus Member Scott Tipton (CO-03) released the following statements in response to the announcement:

“I am extremely disappointed in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for continuing to ignore state and local stakeholder efforts to preserve species,” said Chairman Pearce. “The Fish and Wildlife Service continues to dissuade states and localities from carrying out conservation efforts by punishing them with unnecessary listings that devastate Western economies. Economic development and species conservation are not mutually exclusive. The Fish and Wildlife Service must give these conservation efforts a chance to work.”

 “The listing of the Gunnison Sage Grouse is completely unnecessary in light of the state and local conservation already underway for the grouse,” said Chairman Lummis.  “Colorado has the resources and capability to conserve the grouse, but a federal listing will only undermine these efforts when the grouse needs them the most.  Once again, impacted states and localities are forced to take a back seat in an opaque, litigation-driven process, all while the Endangered Species Act continues to drift away from its original goal of recovering species.”

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service disregarded science and the wellbeing of the Gunnison Sage Grouse today. They decided to ignore the scientific experts, and in true knows-best fashion, listen to the bureaucracy instead, jeopardizing locally-tailored species preservation efforts already successfully underway in Colorado,” said Tipton. “This is not a political issue, but an occasion where people from diverse backgrounds and all sides of the political spectrum have worked together to put into place local plans of action to preserve the species based on extensive scientific data—and they’re working. In addition to implementing a wide range of voluntary conservation efforts, these stakeholders have done everything the federal government has asked to ensure the recovery of this species.”

The state of Colorado, along with local stakeholders, has invested $50 million to protect 90 percent of the private land in the core habitat for the Gunnison Sage Grouse. The core population has stabilized and its numbers are beginning to grow.