DWAYNE MEADOWS
Perspective

The desert east of Dad, the place where so many Wyoming deer hunters and their families spend big-game season, will not be the same as it was last year. On Oct. 1, the season opener, when fathers help grandfathers set up camp, when grandchildren pick up rifles for their first years afield, one of Wyoming’s most popular deer hunt areas -- 82 -- will have become an industrial zone.

The saddest part is that it doesn’t have to happen this way. While the loss of area 82 can be blamed on energy development, this new development proposed for the Atlantic Rim ignores current science, state recommendations and federal law. It represents the Bureau of Land Management’s unwillingness to take a big-picture view of this natural gas project and to manage our public lands, as required, in the interest of every American citizen.

Most folks support responsible development of our nation’s energy resources -- development that balances fish and wildlife needs with resource extraction. But we have reached a breaking point in the federal government’s management of public lands in Wyoming. The new development in the Atlantic Rim Project Area could sever a critically important wildlife migration corridor, endangering the future of one of the state’s largest mule deer herds and compromising recreational opportunities that the BLM is legally bound to uphold.

Home to literally thousands of mule deer, elk, pronghorn and sage grouse, this region is among the most productive regions in the state for wildlife, according to the BLM. An expansive natural gas project in the area could change this. The recently proposed Doty Mountain C POD would drill numerous wells within a narrow mule deer migration corridor that connects the Sierra Madre Range with desert lowlands that are crucial for winter survival. Their location conflicts with the original project plan, which requires maintenance of "functional migration routes through or around development areas." During preparation of the Atlantic Rim project, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department recommended that the BLM protect this specific corridor from the negative impacts of development.

The BLM’s refusal to use the best available information to manage wildlife during energy development poses a serious problem, as displacement of mule deer from preferred habitat and migration routes can severely affect population numbers and overall species health. Led by Gov. Dave Freudenthal, the Western Governors Association recently adopted recommendations on its wildlife corridors resolution passed last year, identifying corridors as important in sustaining "significant, reliable wildlife populations" and, consequently, the substantial economic benefits of hunting in the Atlantic Rim.

Inexplicably, the Doty Mountain proposal never acknowledges information from the WGA and Game and Fish on the importance of migratory corridors. Neither does it reference the recently completed three years of research on the Atlantic Rim’s own mule deer populations -- information that was available to the BLM this spring.

The BLM announced the Doty Mountain proposal only days before the agency was to act on it. The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a sportsmen’s group, objected to the proposal, explaining it was consistent neither with the Atlantic Rim project plan nor with environmental analyses that assumed the migration corridor would be protected. Ongoing development has constricted the corridor, which is in danger of permanent severance. The BLM is expected to render a decision shortly.

In August 2007, the TRCP filed suit against the Interior Department over its approval of energy development on public lands in the Atlantic Rim. The pending litigation is driven in part by concerns that the project’s vague adaptive management process cannot be implemented effectively. The model used to develop the project unequivocally states that impacts would be substantial and potentially devastate the region’s wildlife -- as well as hunting opportunities enjoyed by generations of public lands users.

The type of development proposed on Doty Mountain partly compelled the TRCP suit against Interior. The BLM’s willingness to consider this proposal crystallizes doubts sportsmen had regarding the agency’s ability to manage the area for uses like wildlife and hunting. It confirms that the agency is managing for a single use -- energy development. To responsibly manage the Atlantic Rim’s abundant wildlife and energy resources, the BLM must reconsider its approach. Extracting these resources is possible without drilling in obviously important areas like migration corridors. Furthermore, this corridor is far too valuable to mule deer to accommodate additional development. The TRCP will continue to work in the interest of sportsmen and fish and wildlife to ensure these animals’ safe passage.

We have an opportunity to "do it right" in the Atlantic Rim by utilizing current information to maintain functioning habitats and healthy game populations during energy development. This is not the way to do it right.

Dwayne Meadows lives in Laramie and grew up hunting in the Atlantic Rim region. He works for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (www.trcp.org.)