TETON VILLAGE, Wyo. — Governors from several Western states established a group Sunday to identify key wildlife corridors and crucial habitat in the region in hopes of better coordinating management and policy options in the face of population growth and energy development.
At the annual meeting of the Western Governors’ Association, featuring governors from 19 states and three territories, the executives voted to create the Western Wildlife Council. They charged it with creating a “decision support system” within each state to work on habitat issues in a manner that can be used across political and regional boundaries.
The system will rely heavily upon crafting common definitions and data and mapping systems that can be applied and analyzed at a variety of levels.
“We need to have what the Western governors are suggesting,” said U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. “That means, on sage grouse for example, the fact that we’d have eight fish and game entities that are working together, that are providing some data, that can prove beneficial.”
Sage grouse are considered a key barometer of the overall health of the landscape because of their sensitivity to change, a report prepared for the governors said.
Protecting wildlife corridors is a paramount issue to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, the governors association chairman who oversaw the initiative that led to creating the council.
Each governor will appoint one person to the council who is a state employee and a policy expert. The council will hire a small staff to be based in Denver.
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter said the council would be valuable in the face of the boom in oil and gas development that has occurred across Colorado and other intermountain states. He noted that the number of permits issued for oil and gas drilling in Colorado had increased from about 1,000 10 years ago to 7,000 last year.
“If you look at all the permitting that has already happened . . . the drilling will happen and it’s going to impact the wildlife corridors,” he said.
Wildlife, the Colorado Democrat said, “is a precious resource and the sooner we get about this, the better.”
“At issue is not whether to grow our communities and economies, but how and where we should grow them,” the Wildlife Corridors Initiative report stated. “These decisions will not only affect quality of life in our neighborhoods and communities. They will also determine whether the wildlife and landscapes that so characterize the West will persist in the future.”
In addition to growth and wildlife issues, the council will examine transportation infrastructure and development as well as the impact “possible climate change” could have on the landscape.
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