Sage grouse: No endangered species status

WASHINGTON, March 5 (UPI) -- An iconic bird living in western U.S. sagebrush country faces extinction but won't be named an endangered species, the U.S. Interior Department said Friday.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a conservative Democrat from Colorado, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists had concluded the greater sage grouse, which dwells in the U.S. West and southern Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada, deserved inclusion on the endangered species list.

But other species faced more imminent threats, so the sage grouse is now designated "warranted but precluded," meaning the bird merits protection but won't receive it for now.

Instead, it will be placed on a list of "candidate species" for future inclusion on the endangered species list and its status will be reviewed yearly, Salazar said.

The decision will likely be a boon to oil and gas companies -- and Republican lawmakers from the West -- who argued that giving the bird federal protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act would prevent further drilling in Wyoming and other states where the ground-hugging bird lives, The Baltimore Sun reported.

The ruling leaves sage grouse protection largely in the hands of the states, the newspaper said.

"We must find common-sense ways of protecting, restoring and reconnecting the Western lands that are most important to the species' survival while responsibly developing much-needed energy resources,'' Salazar said in a statement.

Home building and energy development have dwindled the sage grouse population in 11 Western states to an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 from some 16 million 100 years ago.

Some scientists predict the birds could disappear in the next 30 to 100 years.