The Gunnison Sage-Grouse, a bird native to southeastern Utah and southeastern Colorado, is officially a threatened species warranting protection under the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service ruled today. The bird was first proposed to FWS for listing in January 2013, when fewer than 5,000 individuals remained. The agency was forced to list the bird as threatened as part of a legal settlement with the environmental non-profit WildEarth Guardians. The bird, which was first recognized as a separate species from the Greater Sage-Grouse in 2000, has faced a decade of population decline, brought on primarily by habitat loss and fragmentation: Accelerating highway construction, power lines, and housing development in sage-grouse country has obliterated the shrub-steppe habitat the bird requires for mating and rearing chicks. The sage-grouse now occupies only 7 percent of its original range. "That the Gunnison Sage-Grouse made the list at the lower...