Churchill County OKs sage grouse conservation plan

A plan to protect sage grouse habitat and Churchill County land use now has wings, following more than three years of work

The Churchill County Sage Grouse Conservation Plan was approved by the county commission Thursday.

The goal of the plan is to preserve habitat and protect the sage grouse from endangered or threatened status, said Jeanette Dahl, executive director of the Lahontan Valley Environmental Alliance. The idea to form a county plan came in September 2001 after Gov. Guinn formed a statewide task force to analyze sage grouse habitat, she said.

There are 100,000 to 500,000 sage grouse in the United States, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates. Populations declined an average of 3.5 percent per year from 1965 to 1985. Since 1986, populations in several states have increased or stabilized.

The Churchill County plan analyzes habitat and land-use risk factors for three mountainous population units: the Desatoyas, the Clan Alpines and the Stillwaters. The areas total 1,023,277 acres.

The plan's conservation goals include continual air and ground monitoring surveys of the grouse, capturing and placing radio collars on birds for future monitoring, conducting brood surveys during the summer months, and keeping the sage grouse hunting season closed in certain areas.

There were no legal sage grouse hunts in the county in 2004, according to the NDOW Web site.

Much of the labor falls upon the Bureau of Land Management, Nevada Department of Wildlife, the Natural Resource Conservation Service and USFWS.