Steve Mertl, THE CANADIAN PRESS

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VANCOUVER, B.C. - Environment Minister Jim Prentice is reviewing a court decision that found the government has been misapplying its own Species at Risk Act.

Enlarge Photo

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Nevada Department of Wildlife, Kim Toulouse

This April 2007 file photo provided by the Nevada Department of Wildlife shows a male and female sage grouse in the mountains near Reno Nev.

Environmentalists who took the government to court say it's the strongest judgment yet on what they see as federal foot-dragging to protect the habitat needed to revive threatened species.

It has implications for dozens of other animals on the species-at-risk list, said Devon Page, executive director of Ecojustice, the lead group in the suit against Ottawa

The Federal Court ruling issued last Thursday in Vancouver concluded that while it wasn't illegal, Ottawa acted unreasonably by not identifying critical habitat in a recovery plan for the endangered greater sage grouse.

Justice Russel Zinn found the government ignored its own scientific evidence pinpointing the bird's vital habitat.

"The judge adopted our position in entirety and says the minister must identify all the critical habitat that's known at the time, Page said in an interview Monday."

Added Cliff Wallis, vice-president of the Alberta Wilderness Association: "The decision has clearly articulated that the minister does not have discretion."

Environment Minister Jim Prentice is reviewing the decision, press secretary Bill Rodgers said in an email. The minister had been attending the G-8 summit in Italy when the court issued its ruling.

The court gave the two sides 30 days to come up with a plan to revise the grouse's recovery strategy to include its critical habitat.

Page said he hopes Ottawa doesn't appeal the decision.

But Mike Wong, executive director of ecological integrity at Parks Canada, which is responsible for implementing the law, said an appeal hasn't been ruled out.

"We're awaiting advice from our legal counsel on that," Wong said.

The case revolved around a species of sage grouse found in Alberta and Saskatchewan known for the flamboyant mating dance done by its males.

The mating ritual is performed in sparsely vegetated areas called leks.

The grouse once had 100,000 square kilometres of habitat across the southern prairies.

But agriculture, oil and gas development, road-building and pipeline construction have fragmented their habitat. They've been pushed into roughly 6,000 square kilometres straddling the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary near the U.S. border.

While there are thousands of grouse in the United States, the Canadian population has plummeted over the last 20 years and only a few dozen remain.

The government proposed a recovery strategy last year, as required by the act, but it contains no identified critical habitat to be protected, which environmentalists say renders any plan meaningless.

Page said since the act was passed, successive governments have interpreted the legislation to mean they had discretion when it came to identifying critical habitat within the recovery plan for species at risk.

He and Wallis contend political considerations - mainly opposition from development-oriented provinces - are behind the approach.

But Page said 86 per cent of the listed species at risk got there through loss or damage to their habitat.

"So the identification of habitat is the linchpin of the Species at Risk Act," he said.

Of the 55 species recovery plans completed so far, only 17 included identified critical habitat, he said.

Federal lawyers didn't quarrel with environmentalists' interpretation of the law.

However, the government argued its scientists hadn't conclusively identified the grouse's critical habitat.

But Zinn noted in his judgment the recovery strategy itself identified some of the leks with code numbers.

"If the leks are sufficiently notorious to be so named and labelled, it is unreasonable to state they cannot be described," he wrote.

Page said environmentalists have been working both through the courts and via direct discussions with government to apply the law.

The ruling could affect plans for other species at risk, such as the Nooksack dace, a small freshwater fish found in British Columbia, and the woodland caribou, he said.

"The species that is on Canada's quarter is threatened and it has habitat right across the northern boreal forest in Canada," he said.

"That boreal forest is getting mowed down, as a result of which that species is going down the tubes."