Transparency Lacking in ESA Grouse Listing

The Colorado Observer. ^ | April 9, 2014 | Audrey Hudson

[george76]

WASHINGTON — Colorado officials warned a House committee Tuesday that a lack of transparency in the Obama administration’s efforts to protect the sage grouse as an endangered species threatens the scientific validity of the process.

Rob Roy Ramey of Nederland, an independent biologist whose career has focused on species protection, told the House Natural Resources Committee that the process has been closed to the scientific community and that federal officials refuse to share certain data being used to make a final determination.

“It can be like pulling teeth to try and obtain that data,” Ramey said. “The (information) is shared among a good old boys club of people, and yet the data is not public and we’re about to spend billions, if not trillions of dollars on this listing.”

By withholding the information, there is no opportunity to reassess the threat to the species or have a discussion about the priorities to preserve the grouse, Ramey said.

“You can have all the studies you want and can have all the peer reviews you want, but unless the peer reviewers and the public have access to the data, there’s no way that this is truly an effective scientific decision. The (law) requires that these decisions be based on data, not opinions, not speculation in papers,” Ramey said.

[driftdiver]

This really isn’t about protection of this little bird is it.

[GladesGuru]

It is a big bird, but as usual the real agenda is collectivizing (communism) land.

“Science in the National Park Service is in service to the Superintendents and the General Management Plan. It is not science for science sake.”

The above is the best summation of Bureau-science and the castrati of the Bureau-scientist (neutered to sing in their Agency Choir) I have read.

Thank you, Dr. Alson Chase.

[kitchen]

No. In the case of my county in NW Colorado, it is the third time since the Sagebrush Rebellion that some alphabet agency has tried to seal off any natural resource exploration or development. First the black footed ferret, next the feral horse population, now the sage grouse.

Any decline in the population of sage grouse, interestingly enough, is inversely proportional to the increase in the coyote population. When active fed programs aimed at coyote population control were stopped, their numbers ballooned. Grouse are on the menu. Losses of sheep, calves, and other small domestic stock are back up, too.

[exDemMom]

It is the nature of unmanaged populations to go through boom/bust cycles. When there are few predators, the prey species bloom. The predators have plenty to eat and multiply rapidly. When the predators become numerous, they run out of prey and starve. At that time, the prey population rebounds. And so on.

The decision to place a species on the endangered list should not be made based on the current phase of the predator/prey cycle. And data supporting (or not) the decision to list a species really should be public.

I suspect the endangered species act is used inappropriately more times than not, with the goal to prevent land use.

[Smokin' Joe]

Hey, now! They just want to protect the widdle sage grouse from the eeeevil ____________ (fill in the blank), from Mexico to Canada, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, because they be endangered.

HuH?

Suggested eeeevil entities include:

Farmers

ranchers

developers

miners

oil companies

lumber companies

frackers!

motherfrackers!!

fatherfrackers!!!

and the rest of the crew on the 'group w bench'.

Sheesh, enough already!

[Smokin' Joe]

I bet wolves would chow down on grouse, too, just as soon as they are done shredding the elk.

[kitchen]

Maybe for a change of pace. Mostly they'd be too busy munching on elk, buckskin, sheep, and beef. Coincidentally, the 4 largest local cash crops.