The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in 2005 not to list the sage grouse as an endangered or threatened species, but a federal judge overturned the decision.

Responding to a suit filed by the Western Watersheds Project, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise ruled in December 2007 that the wildlife service's decision had been tainted by political pressure from an assistant Interior Department secretary who since has resigned. Winmill will preside over the current lawsuit.

While the wildlife service is expected to deliver a new decision on whether to protect the bird this year, the Bureau of Land Management already considers the sage grouse a "sensitive'' species.

Therefore, the suit contends, the agency must treat it as if it is protected and make sure it takes no action that could push the bird closer to a federal listing. Environmentalists note the agency already has banned grazing on 220,000 acres of southern Nevada where the threatened desert tortoise lives.

The lawsuit alleges BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy Management Act by failing to consider the cumulative impact of the 18 individual resource plans on the sage grouse.

The lawsuit said the BLM refused to consider whether the lands in question are capable of sustaining livestock grazing without causing environmental harm or whether grazing remains a legal suitable use of the lands.

It says the agency also did not weigh the effects of dramatic increases in wildfires, invasive weeds and drought in recent years.

BLM "acted in shocking disregard of the specific sage grouse conservation strategy that BLM itself adopted,'' the lawsuit said. It added the existing plans "will certainly drive sage grouse closer to extinction.''

Agency officials disagree.

"BLM does consider impacts to sage grouse in land use plans,'' said Jolynn Worley, a spokeswoman for BLM in Nevada. She said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

Dan Gralian, president of the Nevada Cattlemen's Association, said the Western Watersheds Project claims to be interested in restoring rangeland but its primary agenda is to get livestock off public lands.

"We cattle and sheep ranchers work hard to manage both our private and public lands for its livestock, wildlife and environmental values and we find such attacks by radical environmental groups counterproductive,'' he said.

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On the Net:

Western Watershed Project: www.westernwatersheds.org

BLM: www.blm.gov

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: www.fws.gov