BLM Director to Tout Sage Grouse Effort in Wyoming

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management will be in Cheyenne on Thursday to promote the federal agency's work to conserve habitat for the greater sage grouse.

Populations of the ground-dwelling birds have declined 90 percent in the West over the past century. Next year, the federal government will decide whether to protect the greater sage grouse as a threatened or endangered species.

BLM Director Neil Kornze and Gov. Matt Mead will meet as the BLM implements rules restricting development in some of the birds' prime habitat. The new rules will prohibit wide-scale disruption to sagebrush habitat in much of Fremont County in central Wyoming.

The rules incorporated into a local BLM resource management plan mirror a Wyoming sage grouse habitat strategy now being adopted in other states.