Idaho has tried for a decade to prevent painful restrictions on ranchers, loggers and hunters from the federal Endangered Species Act - often for naught.

But Friday, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that sage grouse were endangered enough to warrant federal protection, federal officials kept the bird off the list because of the efforts of private landowners and businesses to tackle the problem without the force of one of the most powerful federal laws on the books.

"Voluntary conservation efforts on private lands, when combined with successful state and federal strategies, hold the key to the long-term survival of the greater sage grouse," said Assistant Interior Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Tom Strickland.

The "warranted but precluded decision," long expected, means that ranchers, gas and oil drillers and developers in the vast sagebrush sea that covers the American West won't have to face the toughest restrictions of the federal Endangered Species Act. But federal agencies, especially the Bureau of Land Management, will have to ratchet up management efforts over the next year to ensure the bird's habitat and numbers increase.

Interior officials credited conservation efforts in Idaho and Wyoming with influencing their decision to keep the grouse, famous for its colorful spring mating dance, off the list.

A 30-year Candidate Conservation Agreement recently approved between ranchers, Idaho and federal agencies protects up to 644,000 acres of sage grouse habitat around Weiser, Midvale and Cambridge.

The ranchers agreed to alter their haying schedules, to wait until chicks have hatched to turn cattle out and to help the birds in other ways. Idaho officials are seeking to protect two other areas in eastern Idaho with more than a million acres of sagebrush steppe habitat.

The decision means that management control of the sage grouse remains in the states - and that allows Idaho to continue its limited hunting season.

The agreement was pushed and funded by the Idaho Office of Species Conservation, which since its creation by then-Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has worked as a go-between with landowners and federal agencies on salmon, wolves, slickspot peppergrass and more.

"We're pleased and appreciative of the fact they recognized our efforts and the seriousness that we've gone about trying to protect this species," said Jon Hanian, press secretary for Gov. Butch Otter. "But it is also fair to say we remain very concerned about the long-term threat this potential listing poses to the vitality of the economy and our way of life."

Weiser consultant Joe Hinson, who was contracted by the state to help ranchers put together the conservation agreement, said he was not surprised the agency found listing of the bird warranted. "I don't think they had a lot of choices," Hinson said. "I can't dispute the sage grouse decline."

That's why he's now working with ranchers in the Blackfoot and Soda Springs area on a conservation agreement that would cover 570,000 acres of private land, and another group between Dubois and St. Anthony that would protect thousands of more acres of habitat.

"I can't help but view this as an opportunity," Hinson said. "Once we get this going on the ground I think we can show genuine progress."

Under the "warranted by precluded decision," the sage grouse joins 249 other species on the candidate list. The Fish and Wildlife Service is required to review the status of each annually and to list them immediately under emergency rules if new threats are identified.

Environmentalists challenged a 2004 finding by the Bush administration that a listing was not warranted, which U.S. District Lynn B. Winmill ruled in 2007 was "tainted by the inexcusable conduct of one of its own executives, Julie McDonald, whose tactics included everything from editing scientific conclusions to intimidating FWS staffers."

Conservationists said the 2004 decision allowed oil and gas exploration deep into prime grouse habitat in Wyoming that has made recovery even harder.

"Action by (Interior) Secretary (Ken) Salazar and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service comes years too late as hundreds of thousands of acres of sage grouse habitat have been permanently altered," said Clait Braun, a leading grouse biologist.

Other environmental groups said the decision should be a wake-up call. "A business-as-usual approach isn't going to conserve the sage grouse or its sagebrush habitat," said Ben Deeble, sagebrush habitat expert with the National Wildlife Federation in Montana.

The federal government may not be out of Winmill's courtroom yet. Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds Project, which brought the original lawsuit, wasn't convinced by the Interior Department's scientific analysis.

"I look forward to making a careful review of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's reasons for this decision for sage grouse," said Marvel. "That review will determine if further litigation is needed to bring the agency into compliance with the law."

Salazar, a Colorado rancher himself, acknowledged the impacts on the bird but also talked about the need for oil, gas, wind and solar energy and other resources that exist in the same areas as the grouse.

"This development has provided important benefits, but we must find common-sense ways of protecting, restoring and reconnecting the Western lands that are most important to the species' survival while responsibly developing much-needed energy resources," he said.

Rocky Barker: 377-6484