BLM finalizes plans to protect Gunnison grouse, big-game habitat

By Scott Streater | 10/18/2024 01:22 PM EDT

The Bureau of Land Management also reduced the amount of land in western Colorado available for new oil and gas leasing.

Three Gunnison sage grouse stand in snow.

Gunnison sage grouse in Gunnison County, Colorado. Larry Lamsa/Flickr

The Bureau of Land Management has completed a suite of long-awaited land use plan updates and habitat conservation strategies to better protect Gunnison sage grouse and big-game habitat and migration corridors in Colorado.

Among the final decisions BLM announced Thursday is the approval of two resource management plan updates covering 1.6 million acres in western Colorado that have raised the ire of the oil and gas industry and some congressional Republicans for closing areas to leasing.

BLM said the Grand Junction and Colorado River Valley updates leave open 85 percent of lands that have been analyzed and determined to have high potential for oil and gas.

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But they close hundreds of thousands of acres to future oil and gas leasing.

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