Oregon's Sage Grouse Initiative. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture.
The USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Ann Mills was in Oregon last Thursday to announce new sign ups and funding for the on-going sage grouse initiative.
MILLS: It's really quite exciting actually. I'm here in Oregon getting a tour, a world wind tour of the amazing accomplishments that have been had over the last 12 months here in the state. We have invested a record number of dollars, something on the order of $34-million dollars in conservation working with private land owners to protect sage grouse habitat.
Sage grouse are a specie of bird that inhabit rangelands that are threatened. They are not as yet on the endangered species list thanks to programs like the sage grouse initiative.
MILLS: The sage grouse of course is an iconic bird for the west. The habitat it inhabits, it lives in is this amazing high desert prairie. It's also the same habitat that's important to frankly ranchers and farmers across the west, particularly 11 states. A healthy sage grouse habitat also provides forage for cattle and so it is terribly important to protect it.
This year's sign-up follows a successful pilot year that resulted in private landowners having the assistance to restore over 20,656 acres of prime sage-grouse habitat on private lands in eastern Oregon. Mills toured a sage-grouse restoration project completed by the Hatfield High Desert Ranch near Brothers.
MILLS: NRCS and USDA is really committed to working with folks like the Hatfield's to accomplish multiple goals for the resource, to help keep them thriving but also to help do things like keep the sage grouse off the endangered species list. When this was announced last March by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that they determined that the sage grouse was warranted for listing what ended up happening is that the bird got placed on a waiting list and we know that the listing would incur significant restrictions on domestic energy production, on grazing allotments and would probably be more devastating to western ranchers than the spotted owl listing.
The restoration dollars provide for the removal of juniper which can encroach on nesting areas reducing forage production and provide places for predators to hide. Wildlife species like the sage grouse and mule deer depend primarily upon the shrubs, grasses, and wildflowers that are lost when trees move in.
That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
