This is a short web film produced for Montana Audubon addressing the impact oil & gas development has on sage grouse, a species recently warranted by the USFWS as worthy of protection under the Endangered Species Act. This film includes interviews with David Sibley, Dave Naugle, and Amy Cilimburg.

You can view a small version of the film here for faster loading:

This is a demo from our most recent project, which is ever so close to being done. The larger film is about conservation of sagebrush habitat and its sage-dependent species. Things such as oil and gas development and residential development have been displacing sage-dependent species at rates simply incompatible with the maintenance of biodiversity. Keystone species like sage grouse have been so extensively pressured that they occupy only about 50% of their original range and are at about 50% density within that occupied range.

Environmental lawsuits brought by myriad organizations tend to make me uneasy, but I completely agree with the main contention of this lawsuit, which was that the impacts of climate change were not considered in the delisting and these impacts are SIGNIFICANT.  If you live in this area, as I do, you cannot deny the impacts.  The catastrophic collapse of the whitebark pine is something I’ve seen happen in just the last 8-10 years and is nothing short of stunning.  This particular tree is the hub of many ecological systems, and it will be reduced by over 90% in the next decade.  No doubt.  I’ve already seen ENTIRE mountain ranges collapse.  Unfortunately, without a return of those week-long cold plunges of -45F in January, the Yellowstone grizz will probably remain on the list indefinitely.  At least the protection takes the sting off of the food crash by affording more protections on the periphery.

Photo: Conservation Media

http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/grizzly_bears_back_on_endangered_species_list/C559/L559/