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Article: CLASH ON HIGH PLAINS PROTECTING SAGE GROUSE HABITAT COULD PUT BRAKES ON DRILLING FOR OIL, GAS IN SEVERAL WESTERN STATES.(News)
- Article from:
- Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
- Article date:
- November 11, 2004
- Author:
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Byline: Gary Gerhardt, Rocky Mountain News
The greater sage grouse, a dusky, chicken-sized bird that puffs up like a balloon during mating season, is threatening to limit the production of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of natural gas in the sagebrush country of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Montana.
Biologists say the number of greater sage grouse in the West has dropped from 2 million in the mid-19th century to fewer than 200,000 today.
The current upswing in natural gas production where the birds range is seen as the "last straw" by environmental groups that have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the bird by ...