The greater sage grouse has been called the spotted owl of the sagebrush steppe ecosystem.

The point of that analogy, which I have been using since 1997, is that listing the grouse as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act could have a profound effect on the economies of the 11 western states that are home to the bird. The listing of the northern spotted owl in 1990 all but shut down the old growth timber industry in the Pacific Northwest putting tens of thousand of people out of work.

Today, with a decision on proposing listing of sage grouse delayed until March 4, I think the analogy is misleading. I’m saying I’ve probably been wrong.

There is no doubt that the listing of the grouse will have dramatic impacts on a wide range of activities that take place in the sagebrush seas that stretches from Wyoming and Montana south to Arizona and West to California. It clearly will alter public lands grazing, especially in the spring.

Oil and gas explorers will not get carte blanche to drill anywhere they want without mitigating actions. Wind developers already are planning projects in areas that have the least effects on grouse while preparing offsetting conservation to aid the bird.

Utilities face tough choices to build transmission routes across the region.

But the legal battles that surrounded the spotted owl, triggered, by design of environmental lawyer Todd True and others, a political “train wreck.” This train wreck was caused when judges stopped cold the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management timber sale programs.

Those decisions made political efforts to preserve the timber industry dependent on what was clearly an unsustainable old growth timber harvest, indefensible. It empowered President Bill Clinton to develop the Northwest Forest Plan and gave regional politicians the excuse, “the judge forced us to do this.”

The sage grouse fight is different.

“We are dealing with multiple industries and multiple land use practices where there is not single cause of harm,” said Advocates of the West Executive Director Laird Lucas Tuesday.

No matter what decision the federal agency makes, no one is arguing that sage grouse populations have not suffered. The Endangered Species Act is already working how I believe it works best, prodding agencies, industries and individuals to take preventive action to conserve species and avoid listing.

The decision really is about science. If the science shows the species warrants listing then the law’s most powerful part, Section 7, kicks in. Section 7 says federal agencies shall take “such action necessary to ensure that actions authorized, funded or carried out by them do not jeopardize the continued existence of an endangered species.” They have no choice. Most environmental laws say “where practicable,” but the ESA says “shall.”

If the Fish and Wildlife Service determines listing is warranted but precluded, the grouse becomes a candidate species and there is no Section 7. But it has to reconsider its decision annually and federal agencies have to consider the bird’s fate in their decisions.

Lucas already has dozens of lawsuits filed across the west against the BLM for land management plans he says do not adequately protect sage grouse and its habitat. He has filed more than 600 lawsuits against grazing permits in Nevada and Idaho alone.

A decision that listing is warranted but precluded will strengthen his case in those lawsuits, he said. But he of course, believes that listing is warranted and hopes to have the stronger tool of Section 7, which requires consultations agencies to require activities that degrade habitat to offset those effects.

But he doesn’t want to shut down development across the millions of acres of the sagebrush sea. He just wants a comprehensive plan to rebuild and restore the sagebrush steppe that has been cut in half over the last century.

“Sage grouse need large patches of intact sagebrush,” Lucas said.

But they don’t necessarily need a train wreck. In fact, a train wreck likely unleashes political forces that work against Lucas’ cause.

With 11 states involved, the issue could go to Congress quickly and turn the tide like Washington and Oregon were unable to do in the 1980s over owls. So the sage grouse is not the spotted owl of the sagebrush sea.

But it’s still the canary in the coal mine.