Sagebrush is to sage grouse

A couple of years ago the sage grouse was proposed for listing on the Endangered Species Act, but was rejected. I'm not usually a person who sees conspiracies, but in this case I think it is absolutely warranted to believe that the current administration had a hand in the rejection. A lot of the sage grouse habitat in Wyoming is in the Pinedale region, where it just happens is also where there is a lot of oil and coal. If the grouse had been listed, drilling in that area would have been verboten since it is illegal to harm habitat of an endangered species. Bush and Cheney are both oil men. It all computes.
"Yes," many people say. "But we have LOTS of sagebrush." From the human point of view, we absolutely do. From the sage grouse's point of view things are a bit different. Though sage grouse have been known to nest on oil pads, they prefer to nest away from disturbance under sagebrush of medium height, and they like to be near certain grasses of a certain height. (I don't recall to a T what the ideal grass height is, but I seem to remember reading something about 18-24 centimeters.) The grouse depend on the sage for food and shelter, supplementing their diets with certain insect species. (Antelope also eat sagebrush.) This is definitely where the food chain comes in. Even if the disappearance of sagebrush doesn't outright kill the grouse, it will definitely deplete the supply of insects that young grouse feed on, starving them. With no cover, they are more vulnerable to predation. Something like this could easily wipe out an entire clutch of eggs or young birds. A man from Gillette once tried to convince me that he had seen grouse hanging out on golf courses. The implication was that if grouse spend time on golf courses then it must be suitable habitat, so we shouldn't worry. While I don't doubt that adult birds cross golf courses from time to time, that doesn't mean it is good habitat. I very much doubt there have been any grouse families raised on said courses. An adult sage grouse is savvy enough to know that there are lots of people on golf courses who might step on the eggs, and when the people have gone home at night the eggs are still vulnerable to nest predators. And, of course, there is no sage, which comprises the diet of the adult so the bird has nothing to eat. To get back to the sage the mother will have to leave her eggs to the mercy of the elements (predators, golfers, weather, etc.) and cross roads. Granted, she can fly across the roads, but there are still rushing cars and glass windshields to be dealt with.
A year or so ago a senator told me that the oil companies were trying to protect the sagebrush by putting down mats over which they drove all the equipment. I rolled my eyes and responded that 1) the mats would probably crush the sage, and 2) even if the mats didn't crush the sage, the vehicles would. One of the arguments against ORVs is that they compress soil as much as 6 feet down, and they are nowhere near as heavy as this equipment. A friend of mine recently suggested (only partly in jest) that it might be a good idea to require elected officials to take a class on the environment when they are elected. Depending on the official, I think it's not a bad idea, although infeasible.

*Sage grouse experts, please feel free to weigh in!