An undated photo of a male great western sage grouse. The Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission decides to postpone release of a sage grouse habitat maps for Grant County, following resistance from county residents who fear those maps may impact their development rights.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
For two decades, Oregon ranchers and state agencies have teamed up to keep the sage grouse off the endangered species list. They’ve drawn up their own plans to protect the bird while allowing farms and ranches in habitat areas, so that federal species protections don’t impose more rigid rules.
But an effort to update the state’s sage grouse habitat maps has alarmed some Grant County residents. That prompted Oregon’s Land Conservation and Development Commission on Thursday to adopt new habitat maps that exclude Grant County — for now.
Sage grouse — known for their iconic mating dance — once numbered in the millions in Oregon. Now only thousands remain. And research conducted while updating the state’s protection plans found the birds have some habitat in rural Grant County, which was not accounted for when those plans were last updated in 2015.
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Steve Grasty, a retired Harney County judge who engaged in the state’s previous update, drove hundreds of miles Thursday to the Land Conservation and Development Commission’s meeting in Salem. He urged commissioners to tread carefully.
“We did a good job before, and we didn’t do a good job this time,” Grasty said.
Grant County residents have received letters telling them they might lose development rights because of sage grouse habitat, he said.
“That’s a scary letter to get,” Grasty said. “People didn’t understand what you could and couldn’t do.”
Related: Video: Land Conservation and Development Commission, Jan. 23, 2025
And a presentation by LCDC staff aimed at educating Grant County community members was held just 36 hours before the commission planned to vote to update its maps — meaning many confused land owners did not have time to prepare testimony.
Ty Sharp, who manages two large ranches that span parts of four counties including Grant, told the commission that the owner of the land where he works is one of those people who did not have time to rearrange plans to testify.
“I’m not against sage grouse or conservation. I’m a hunter, and I think conservation is key,” Sharp said.
But he also said the maps that have been shared don’t go into enough detail for all property owners to see how they’re affected, and he worried about new restrictions that could be imposed on the land he manages.
“We’re not just ranchers,” he said. “We look at other avenues of revenue. Someone mentioned solar, wind. We mine, we plan to mine. We’re afraid that this would restrict us from doing that.”
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After listening to that testimony, as well as comments from people who urged them to adopt all the new sage grouse maps, members of the commission voted to leave Grant County out until residents there have time to learn more.
The commission adopted the rest of the updated maps and said it may add the Grant County maps at a future meeting.
Correction: An earlier version included the wrong location of Thursday’s Land Conservation and Development Commission meeting. The meeting was held in Salem. OPB regrets the error.