Biologists trying to keep wildlife out of 'ER'

While the federal endangered species list is intensive care for wildlife populations on the brink of extinction, Wyoming has its own list of species in need of preventative care.

The state list, called Wyoming's Species of Greatest Conservation Need, covers 279 species from mammals to mollusks. Of those, 235 are simply listed because too little is known to even determine whether they're in good shape.

The list presents an opportunity to treat the problem before it becomes a crisis, said Glenn Pauley, the program's coordinator for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

'The impetus for the whole program is to avoid that emergency-room approach to wildlife,' he said Friday during the annual Wildlife Society -- Wyoming Chapter meeting. 'We're very much trying to get ahead of the problem.'

Pauley showed the room full of state and federal biologists, scientists and wildlife managers plans to revise the list by 2010.

Pauley's preliminary survey of experts identified four primary 'drivers' that could affect future wildlife populations. They are: expanding rural subdivisions, energy development, invasive nonnative species and climate change. How wildlife is responding to an altered landscape was a common theme during the annual, three-day meeting titled 'Changing Times for Wyoming Wildlife.'

Much of the meeting, which wrapped up Friday, highlighted ongoing research efforts to understand the potential impacts of energy development -- from fossil fuels to wind farms -- on sage grouse, songbirds, elk, mule deer and other species across the state.

Future development of sagebrush is inevitable with the global demand for energy projected to increase 50 percent by 2030, according Holly Copeland, a GIS mapping expert with The Nature Conservancy's Wyoming Chapter. Copeland presented maps, generated through computer modeling, showing how conflicts are inevitable because lands most likely to be targeted for future drilling overlap with critical habitat for at-risk species such as sage grouse.

Moreover, another Nature Conservancy GIS expert, Amy Pocewicz, presented maps showing how wind power potential in Wyoming could carve up more habitat. Lands with some of the highest potential for harnessing wind are situated outside areas already being developed for fossil fuels.

'Wyoming has one of the highest capacities for wind development in the nation,' Pocewicz said. 'We have a risk of fragmenting a lot of our landscapes.'

Several studies presented during the meeting showed how the landscape changes are affecting wildlife. Much of the research focused on sage grouse. One researcher described how sage grouse stop using leks, or breeding grounds, near drilling activity within three to five years. Another study offered preliminary results showing sage grouse raised fewer chicks near new coalbed methane drilling in the Atlantic Rim, south of Rawlins, compared to grouse in an area with no drilling. The research is showing sage grouse declining near drilling activity no matter whether it's coalbed methane in the Powder River Basin or deep gas in the Upper Green River Basin.

Energy's impact wasn't the only concern. Pauley said the state needs a plan for comprehensively addressing many landscape-scale changes, such as forest die-offs from pine beetle infestations, invasions of exotic species such as cheat grass, and changes in water flows because of climate change.

'I don't think we're going to retain the wildlife we have in Wyoming today by accident,' he said.

Pauley is leading the effort to revise both the list of Species of Greatest Conservation Need and the long-range conservation plan for those species. Draft revisions should be finished and available for public review and comment by December 2009, he said.

The new plan could set funding priorities for managing sensitive species, he said. Despite the economic downturn, the state could see more federal money for wildlife if Congress approves proposed climate change legislation and other bills that include money to help states conserve wildlife, he said. In fact, the state first wrote the conservation plan for sensitive species in 2005 to remain eligible for federal grant monies for wildlife.

One of the goals of revising the plan is to help the state identify how best to spend its money to 'get us the greatest diversity for the dollars,' Pauley said.

Here's a breakdown of Wyoming's Species of Greatest Conservation Need:

279 total

• 54 mammals
• 60 birds
• 26 reptiles
• 12 amphibians
• 40 fish
• 19 crustaceans
• 68 mollusks

Source: Wyoming Game & Fish Department