Trump Admin Moves To Weaken Protections For This Unique American Bird

"Western greater sage grouse are famous for fierce battles between males in an annual rite to mate with hens. It’s a theatrical show of machismo, chest thumping and razor-sharp clawing over a wide landscape that people across the world travel to watch.

But an equally nasty fight over this dwindled species is happening behind the scenes between humans, and this week it came to a boil. The Trump administration released a plan that would amend Obama-era protections that set aside federal land to keep oil and gas operations from building infrastructure in the birds’ habitat.

The Bureau of Land Management, an arm of the Interior Department, wants to reclassify millions of acres as fit for oil, gas and mineral development, which scientists and conservationists say will continue the fragmentation of the sage grouse, a bird that gains strength in numbers and withers when development breaks groups apart."

Darryl Fears reports for the Washington Post May 4, 2018.