CPW SETS GOALS FOR MOUNTAIN LION PLAN

JUNCTION» A draft GRAND plan by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife department would maintain stable populations of mountain lions in western Colorado.

The plan would establish a special management area to deal with conflicts between lions and humans, The Daily Sentinel reported.

The agency proposes to manage lions on a regional rather than a local level to reflect factors such as the mobility of the lions.

The plan’s goal is to establish relatively stable populations in the northern and southern regions of the state’s West Slope.

The updated goal replaces objectives for 13 localized areas, including two areas in which mountain lions are managed with a goal of suppressing their numbers.

The plan proposes a 2021-22 hunting goal of 243 lions for the northwest Colorado region and 185 in the southwest region. In 2018-19, the limit was 317 lions for northwest Colorado and 194 in southwest Colorado.

Hunters across the entire northwest region averaged 228 lion kills per year in the period from 2016 to 2018, the draft plan said.

The plan was posted online for review and the wildlife department seeks public feedback by April 12.

Feds won’t list bi-state grouse. NEV.» Two

RENO, years after a U.S. judge ordered the Trump administration to reconsider its refusal to protect sage grouse populations along the California-Nevada line, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has again decided against listing the bi-state grouse as threatened or endangered.

The bi-state grouse is related to but separate from the greater sage grouse, which lives in a Colorado and 11 other Western states and is at the center of a dispute over the government’s efforts to roll back protections adopted under President Barack Obama.

Monday’s decision is the latest in the government’s on-again, offagain federal actions to protect the game bird under the Endangered Species Act dating to 2013.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said its latest review indicates the status of the bi-state grouse’s population has improved, thanks in large part to voluntary protection measures adopted by state agencies, local ranchers and other interested third parties.

Conservationists insisted the Trump administration is ignoring the fact the bird has been in serious trouble for more than a decade.