A greater sage grouse struts in the dawn light on April 7 on the McStay ranch in Craig. (Joe Amon, The Denver Post)
Re: “Cory Gardner introduces act to delay endangered decision on grouse,” April 23 news story.
As an elected official, I am disappointed by Sen. Cory Gardner’s recently introduced bill, the Sage-Grouse Protection and Conservation Act. This bill will effectively undermine good-faith efforts currently underway to conserve the species by stakeholders, including counties, landowners and state and federal agencies. Instead of more delays, which put us in this position in the first place, we should focus on creating and implementing strong state and federal plans to protect the bird, its habitat and our local economy.
The recent bi-state (California and Nevada) decision not to list the greater sage grouse highlights what good-faith proactive and collaborative efforts can do to effectively conserve key habitat and protect this iconic bird. Now is the time to step up our efforts to conserve the bird and its habitat — we can’t afford further distractions and delays and neither can the bird.
Tim Corrigan,Steamboat Springs
The writer is a Routt County commissioner.
This letter was published in the April 28 edition.
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