Report: Sage grouse needs 3-mile buffer

BILLINGS, Mont. — A government report with significant implications for the U.S. energy industry says a struggling bird species needs a 3-mile buffer between its breeding grounds and oil and gas drilling, wind farms and solar projects.

The study comes as the Obama administration weighs new protections for the greater sage grouse. The ground-dwelling, chicken-sized birds range across 11 western states, including Nevada, and two Canadian provinces.

A 3-mile buffer for the birds represents a much larger area than the no-occupancy zones where drilling and other activity is prohibited under some state and federal land management plans.

However, those plans also contain more nuanced provisions, which backers say will protect sage grouse, such as seasonal restrictions on drilling or other activity and limits on the number of oil and gas wells within key sage grouse habitat.

Some wildlife advocates say too much energy development is being allowed, undermining efforts to help grouse. Such opposition could be bolstered by Friday’s U.S. Geological Survey report.

The USGS made no management recommendations, and agency scientists said the buffer distances were for guidance only.

Greater sage grouse populations dropped sharply in recent decades due to disease, pressure from the energy industry, wildfires and other factors.

Now state and federal officials are scrambling to come up with conservation measures to protect the grouse ahead of a court-ordered September 2015 decision on protections.