Be prepared

The federal government did not list the sage grouse as a threatened or endangered species.

But local public land managers should pretend the feds did.

A key part of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s announcement Friday is that federal protection for the sage grouse is warranted.

But according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, other species need the feds’ help more.

Right now, anyway.

The FWS will review the sage grouse’s status every year. And the pressure on the agency will continue — on Monday a group filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boise to force formal protection for the birds.

While the politics play out, the BLM, which manages most of the publicly owned sage grouse habitat in Baker County and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Oregon, needs to focus on preserving that habitat.

We don’t mean to imply that BLM officials are unaware of sage grouse. Nor are we suggesting that this task is easy.

But it is vital.

If the FWS lists the sage grouse, then the BLM will have to prove that livestock grazing and other activities on public land are not harming the birds or their habitat. If the agency can’t do so, those activities will likely be curtailed or eliminated altogether.

To that end, BLM officials need to work closely with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the agency responsible for sage grouse (BLM manages the habitat, but not the birds).

That cooperation will help BLM keep habitat viable for sage grouse, and designate public lands where grazing is appropriate. Far better to do that now than to wait until the federal government mandates that it happen.