Audubon News
Newsletter of Prairie Hills Audubon Society of Western South Dakota Inc.
February, 2020
UPDATES ON PHAS LITIGATION TO
PROTECT GREATER SAGE GROUSE
WE WON AN INJUNCTION AGAINST
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
On October 16, 2019 a group of allies -- Advocates
for the West, Prairie Hills Audubon Society (PHAS), Center
for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians and Western
Watersheds Project successfully blocked Trump administra-
tion plans allowing expanded drilling, mining, livestock
grazing and other destructive activities across 51 million
acres of greater sage-grouse habitat on Bureau of Land
Management’s land in seven western states: Idaho,
Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Ne vada, California, and Ore-
gon!
In his order granting a preliminary injunction, U.S.
District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled that the admin-
istration failed with analysis of how sage grouse would be
harmed under the March 2019 land-use plans. This ruling
throws a wrench into the Trump administration’s efforts to
weaken protections for the greater sage-grouse and expand
the uses of public lands for extractive industries like oil and
gas and livestock grazing. PHAS and our co-plaintiffs were
able to move quickly to get the Trump administration’s
plans to court before a Judge, because we were already in
litigation over the Obama era greater sage grouse plans.
The BLM has appealed the injunction. The BLM is
also planning to release Supplemental Environmental Im-
pact Statements (SEIS) soon, in an effort to fix shortcom-
ings in the Final Environmental Impact Statement.
In spring of 2016 PHAS, Western Watersheds Proj-
ect, the Center for Biological Diversity & WildEarth
Guardians filed litigation to protect the greater sage grouse.
The Obama Administration had amended management
plans to improve the protections the Forest Service and
BLM provided for the sage grouse. While the new manage-
ment was an improvement over the past, we believe that too
many compromises/concessions had been made and not
enough progress existed to protect grouse from extinction in
the long term. We did not ask for a stay against the amend-
ments in 2016, but sought to ask for changes if we won.
This litigation was put on hold, when Trump won the
election and announced his intention to rewrite the Obama
era plan amendments. In March 2019 the Trump administra-
tion finalized those changes, which would have terrible im-
pacts to sage grouse. We filed to supplement the existing
litigation in order to oppose the new Trump era proposals
and to ask for a preliminary injunction to return the BLM to
the Obama era decisions until the Court issued a final deci-
sion on our claims.
This litigation effort represents at least 7 years of work.
To achieve standing to sue, we and co-clients had to com-
ment on multiple documents (15 EISs in 2013) and appeal
decisions, in 10 states for 2 agencies, through 2 administra-
tions. We are represented by Advocates for the West, a non-
profit, public interest law firm and are very grateful to our
lawyers and co-clients.
You can find more information about the law-
suits on our web site, on the home and project web pages.
Links to filings in the lawsuit are provided or Nancy can
send you electronic documents or links.
Nancy Hilding would love to hear from any mem-
bers concerned about the greater sage grouse and/or
have experience with them or have visited, watched or pho-
tographed them in any state in the west. Nancy’s phones
and e-mails - 605-787-6466 or cell 605-877-2620, nhild-
ing@rapidnet.com.
PHAS shares members with the National Audubon Soci-
ety (NAS). We get about $560 per year from the National
Audubon Society (NAS) as a fixed annual grant, irrespec-
tive of the number of members we share with NAS or the
net amount of their dues/donations to NAS. We run this
chapter with the work, support & direct donations of volun-
teers & members/friends, however our budget is limited.
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March 5th 2020, GFP Commission Hearing
This is the date that the Game, Fish and Parks Commis-
sion will have a hearing on the 2020 version of the Nest
Predator Bounty Program, championed by Kristi Noem.
It will be at the RedRossa Convention Center at 808 West
Sioux Avenue in Pierre. Public comment deadline using
their online form is midnight Sunday March 1st. See our
PHAS web site for info. --
This is killing of predators is justified by not-scientifically
justified & debunked theories on how to increase pheasants
and duck populations. Pheasants are an exotic species that
competes with the greater prairie chicken, whose population
is declining -- losing half it’s population every decade.
OTHER EVENTS
-- Events with dates and details that are not yet fixed --
We hope to have a PHAS meeting(s) on SDGFP’s nest
predator bounty program in late February.
We hope to have a meeting on our greater sage grouse liti-
gation sometime in the spring, maybe in late March.
We will need help manning a booth at Earth Day and we
may plan an Audubon Birthday Celebration on 4/26/20.
We are having about 2 meetings w/ meals per month. To be
informed of those, be sure to send us your e-mail address.
----------- Fixed Dates of Events ---------------
January 14th- March 12th & 30th SD Legislative Session
January 15th- February 15th - Climate Watch Period
January 13th-April 6th, 2020 Entry Period National Audubon’s
(NAS) Photo Contest
February 14-February 17th - Great Backyard Bird Count
March 20 and 21, 50th NAS Crane Festival, in Kearny Ne-
braska
Saturday, April 25th, Earth Day Expo. at WDT
Sunday April 26th, John James Audubon’s Birthday,
Saturday May 2nd, tentative date of La Creek NWR field
trip Saturday (please verify date -- when we closer to date)
Friday, May 15th, in the evening will be the Endangered
Species Day Celebration - PHAS always organizes an En-
dangered Species Day Celebration on the third Friday in
May.
SD Legislature
We follow the SD Legislature and provide bill tracking service
on our web site and we send out occasional alerts and/or post such
alerts to the web site. -- Visit the PHAS web site to see what we
have posted or give us your e-mail address to receive alerts and
bill tracking information. We have our discussion “meetings with
meals” during the legislature to discuss such. The Sierra Club is
bringing their lobbyist to Rapid City on February 12th to discuss
the legislature with their members and friends. Watch our web site
for info on the legislature.
Prairie Hills Audubon Society is run by volunteers, we need new volunteers to help run organization, but we are especially looking for
new Board Members. For information contact Nancy or Mary Jo whose contact info. is listed on the label fold. Visit our web site to
stay updated on our & other organization’s functions. Please send us your e-mail address so we can send you PHAS announcements.
If members are interested in having meetings in other towns besides Rapid City, let Nancy Hilding know. If we had a few interested
folks we could at least have social meeting(s) at a restaurant. We need new volunteer(s) to help with our web page.

Climate Watch - January 15 - February15th Hilding 787-6466, nhilding@rapidnet.com. Another Climate

Via Climate Watch birders help the National Audubon Society
(NAS) collect data on birds. NAS is trying to understand cli-
mate changes effects on birds better.
Birding occurs at 12 points in a 10 kilometer square area. Each
volunteer chooses one or more small circle(s) within the square
area from a grid supplied by the NAS. Volunteer(s) needs to
bird for 5 minutes at one or more of 12 points (small circles) and
collect data on either all birds seen or on a few target species,
Volunteers count birds & thus document how ranges of blue-
birds, nuthatches, goldfinches, towhees, or Painted Bunting are
shifting. Someone must send the data into NAS via e-bird. Data
compiled by volunteers helped Audubon scientists confirm mod-
els for Audubon’s latest climate report, Survival by Degrees: 389
Bird Species on the Brink. (Go to NAS web page to learn more).
"The Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink"
indicates which birds are under threat from climate change. For
more info. visit NAS or PHAS web pages or contact Nancy
Watch season will occur in June.
National Audubon Society's Annual Photo contest
January 13th-April 6th, is the 2020 Entry Period
We suggest members google the photo contest and especially
look at past years winners, some beautiful photos of birds will
be seen. We have links up on our web site.
Project to record Lakota Language bird names.
PHAS wants to start a project, working with high school sci-
ence teacher and students at Little Wound School in Kyle SD, to
identify & record Lakota language names for bird species in SD.
This would entail students talking to elders. We likely also need
to study tribal wildlife/historic records. To help with this project
we seek donations of used birding guide books or binoculars or
cash to purchase such for the students.. Contact Nancy for more
information. 787-6466, nhilding@rapidnet.com

Prairie Hills Audubon Society is a Chapter of the National Audubon Society; our territory is much of West River SD. Nancy Hild-
ing - President, nhilding@rapidnet.com, 605-787-466 or 6779, Helen McGinnis - Treasurer, hissyhelen38@gmail.com, Doris Re-
spects Nothing - Secretary, drn.6501@gmail.com, MaryJo Farrington - Board member, 605-716-2151, Jim Petersen - Board
member, nfearndesire@gmail.com, Dan Licht - Web site designer. PHAS web site : http://phas-wsd.org/ - We have a Facebook
page....google - Prairie Hills Audubon Society of Western South Dakota, Facebook. Our e-mail address is phas.wsd@rapidnet.com.

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We need help with our web site, as our web designer of years is moving away and we need someone who understands
web sites to help work with the web site. Conversely, if anyone understands Dreamweaver, they could help by teach-
ing Nancy how to run the site with Dreamweaver, as Nancy has that software - this option would not be perpetual help
with the site, but just a short tutorial, so Nancy can run site independently. (nhilding@rapidnet.com or 787-6466)
Foothills Area Cracker Barrel list of cracker barrels.
Piedmont, SD, 2/8/2020 February 9th, 5:15 pm - 8:30 pm
Prairie Hills Audubon Society’s Dinner meeting
When - Saturday, February 8th, 1:30 pm - 4:00 pm
PHAS has been scheduling lunch or dinner meetings about
Where - American Legion Post 311, Piedmont
twice a month at Hana’s Restaurant, 3550 Sturgis Rd in
Who - Legislators for Districts 29 and 33 have been in-
Rapid City. These are scheduled by doodle poll with those
vited
have attended before and are announced via e-mail and on
This is our tenth year of having such a Cracker Barrel.
our web site and Facebook pages. We may start scheduling
PHAS is one of the five co-sponsors of this annual event.
meal meetings in the northern Hills. The February agenda
PHAS’s address is in Black Hawk - so it is sort of our 'local
will include discussion of 1. Nest Predator Bounty Pro-
community" event each year. More info is on our web site
gram, 2. Bills in the legislature 3. Networking issues/pro-
or Facebook page & the Facebook events listing is:
jects that local environmental group leaders want to share
https://www.facebook.com/events/258420161806491/
with others. Hanas serves Korean/Japanese food, it is lo-
The Legion is located at intersection of Sturgis Rd and Pine
cated in Rapid City, NE of the intersection of Sturgis Road
St.. On the PHAS web site, each year we keep a statewide
and West Chicago. Hana's web site: www.SushiRapidCity.com