Ken Salazar, Secretary
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street N. W.
Washington D. C. 20240

Dear Secretary Salazar:

The Public Lands Foundation would like to compliment you and the professional men and women of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management for your sound and thoughtful decision to consider the Greater Sage Grouse as a candidate species and to emphasize the efforts being made to conserve, maintain, and restore this species and its habitat in the West.

The wise multiple use and sustained yield management of the National System of Public Lands which contains the majority of sage grouse habitat in the Nation is a challenging task.  As we look to a decade of renewable and non-renewable energy development on these lands, a cooperative approach with the western states and private landowners as partners is well suited to both facilitate needed development of the public interest and assure the maintenance of healthy and abundant sage grouse populations as well as the ecological health of the western lands generally.

This can best be accomplished, we think, with the listing decision you have made and the focused and accelerated management efforts by BLM working hand in hand with western state wildlife agencies, non-profit organizations, and private landowners toward a common goal.  

Thank you.

Sincerely,

/S/  Henri Bisson
President, Public Lands Foundation                 

CC: Robert Abbey, BLM Director