DENVER, CO – As the comment period closes today on the Interior Department’s move to overhaul the sage-grouse conservation plans, Westerners of all stripes are saying the plans should stay in place.

Tracy Stone-Manning, the National Wildlife Federation’s associate vice president for public lands, said:

“At recent public meetings and in more than 267,000 comments to federal officials, people have said the sage-grouse plans put together by Westerners from across the political spectrum should be given a chance to work. The plans by the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service were developed over years with a lot of input from communities, the states, the oil and gas industry and private landowners. The Interior Department needs to respect this unprecedented collaborative effort and get on with saving the sage-grouse and sagebrush lands that mule deer, pronghorns and more than 350 species need to survive.”