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Show Agency Partnerships Outline Plan To Protect Sage Grouse OGDEN, UT An interagency Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) outlining a partnership to develop conservation strategies for sage grouse and their primary habitat of sagebrush ecosystems was signed in July by representatives repre-sentatives of game and fish and land management agencies in 11 Western West-ern states. The partners to the agreement comprise the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA), the USDA Forest Service Ser-vice (USFS), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). The WAFWA acknowledged the need for sage grouse and sagebrush ecosystem conservation planning after monitoring studies by its Technical Committee reported sharp declines in the number of sage grouse in the West. The WAFWA partnership is designed in two tiers. The Framework Frame-work Team is composed of four state representatives and a representative repre-sentative from the US Forest Service Ser-vice and BLM. A US Fish and Wildlife Service representative serves on the Framework Team in an advisory role. The Framework Team coordinates information on conservation planning and guides the progress of the State Conservation Conse-rvation Planning Teams. The second tier of the partnership partner-ship is the State Conservation Plan-ning Teams who will write the site-specific documents recommending recom-mending statewide actions to conserve con-serve and increase sage grouse numbers throughout their range. These leams include all interested individuals as well as representatives represen-tatives of the land management agencies, state game and fish agencies, agen-cies, and Tribal governments. Through coordination by the Framework Team, the conservation plans created by the State Conservation Con-servation Planning Teams should be seamless across state boundaries and consistent in management goals for the sage grouse. Once the State Conservation strategy documents are completed, the Framework Team will combine them into a single conservation planning documents docu-ments for the 1 1 Western states. (See SAGE GROUSE on page 4-A) SAGE GROUSE From Front Page For further information on the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies' sage grouse conservation con-servation planning project, call Colleen Madrid at the Forest Service (801-625-5117 in Utah. There is also a website but the address was not included in the news release. Other numbers to call include Stan Stiver, Nevada Division of Wildlife (775-688-1523), Terry Rich, USDOI Bureau of Land Management (208-373-4043), and Pat Deibert, US Fish and Wildlife Service (307-772-2374). The news release originated from the Dixie National Forest Cedar City office. |
