Grasslands amendment challenged

Alexis Barker
NLJ News Editor
 
The implementation of the Thunder Basin National Grassland’s plan amendment has been put on hold following a recently filed lawsuit challenging the plan. The Western Watersheds Project, Rocky Mountain Wild and WildEarth Guardians filed the lawsuit, according to an email from Bailey K. Brennan, who serves as the Wyoming County Commissioners Association’s natural resource counsel. 
After an extensive discussion process among several cooperating agencies as part of a working group, a notice of grassland plan amendment approval was published in the Federal Register in December of last year, according to information on the U.S. Forest Service website. Cooperating agencies included U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Wyoming Field Office, the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Wyoming State Office, the Wyoming Department of Agriculture, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the Wyoming State Office of Land and Investments, Wyoming Weed and Pest Council, Campbell County, Crook County, Niobrara County and Weston County. 
The plan amendment, according to the website, addressed “the management of the black-tailed prairie dog colonies on the National Forest System lands to allow federal land managers to respond to a variety of environmental and social conditions on the grassland.” The amendment addressed long-standing issues related to prairie dog management, including the viability of at-risk wildlife species, recovery of the endangered black-footed ferret, forage for permitted livestock, prairie dog encroachment onto private and state lands, and social and economic issues. 
“The amended grassland plan establishes prairie dog management zones along boundaries between National Forest System lands and private and state properties, allows broader application of tools for colony control, maintains 10,000 acres of prairie dog colonies managed for conservation and wildlife habitat and increased emphasis on management of sylvatic plague,” the website says. 
“Things were clipping along fabulously. Everyone was working together to implement the record of division, several subgroups were working on them, working with the Forest Service on implementation,” Dru Bower with Dru Consulting told the Board of Weston County Commissioners on Dec. 7. “Then the lawsuit was filed and the Forest Service was instructed to step away and not engage with the working group at this time.” 
Bower started Dru Consulting in 2005 to provide consulting services to several entities, including various counties in Wyoming, according to the Wyoming Natural Resource Foundation website. She also serves on the foundation’s board of trustees. 
According to Bower, the cooperating agencies plan to meet in January to determine how the working group will move forward to work through the issues of implementation without the Forest Service being at the table. 
A Nov. 18 press release on the WildEarth Guardians website announced the lawsuit, stating that the three organizations challenged the amendment because the Forest Service planned to ramp up “eradication of the black-tailed prairie dogs by poison and sport shooting.” It notes that the plan also eliminates a “black-footed ferret reintroduction area previously designated to help recover this critically endangered mammal.” 
During the discussion with Bower, Commissioner Tony Barton asked if there was something the tri-county coalition of Crook, Niobrara and Weston counties needed to do to intervene against the nongovernmental organizations (Western Watersheds Project, Rocky Mountain Wild and WildEarth Guardians). 
“I think that is a discussion the counties need to have with the state. I am happy to facilitate that,” Bower said. 
Brennan noted in her letter that she plans to submit questions to the Forest Service regarding plan implementation, with the hopes of providing more information and direction to the other cooperating agencies.