Star-Tribune Editorial Board

Wyoming's Game and Fish Commission takes its mandate to protect and manage the state's wildlife seriously. So seriously, in fact, that it's now trying to find out from the attorney general if it can reject a legislative directive to create a framework for sage grouse farming in the state.

We don't know what the attorney general will say about the case. But the Legislature could easily resolve the matter by rescinding the order.

As it is wont to do, the Legislature earlier this year attached to the budget bill a directive - this one to Game and Fish to develop regulations to allow private bird farms to raise native sage grouse for release into the wild.

Backers said it was an honest attempt to solve a problem: The number of sage grouse has been declining in the West because of a combination of long-term drought, West Nile virus, and habitat destruction associated with energy development. The numbers are so low that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is studying whether the species should be granted federal protection under the Endangered Species Act - a move that could have a major negative impact on energy production in Wyoming.

The problem is that experts don't think raising the birds on farms is a good answer. Brian Rutledge, executive director of Wyoming Audubon, said there's a disease risk in raising sage grouse in captivity with other birds and then releasing them into the wild.

Rutledge also said untrained bird farmers could harm native sage grouse populations under rules that allow them to gather eggs from the wild. He is fearful about the disruption to the birds' native habitat.

"No one in the world is breeding grouse successfully, not in any replicable method," he noted.

In addition, the Game and Fish Department held a series of meetings throughout the state this summer, and the vast majority of public comments were against the sage grouse farming rules.

Tom Christiansen, the department's sage grouse program coordinator, said the space and mating requirements of the birds haven't proved conducive to raising them in captivity.

The department created the sage grouse farm rules, just as the Legislature directed, but the Game and Fish Commission doesn't want to implement them. In addition to the disease and survival concerns, commissioners are worried about the lack of funding to implement the new regulations.

The Legislature next year should reconsider its action and let Game and Fish off the hook. There's no reason for the commission to adopt rules to do something that experts and the public don't think will work. Wyoming's sage grouse have enough problems without the Legislature making their chances of survival any dimmer.