The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is changing the status of the greater sage grouse from threatened to endangered.

Conservation Section Assessment Manager Taylor Cotten says there were multiple reasons for the uplisting.

“There’s the continued population decline, but also new information around the effective population size which is basically the number of individual birds that are contributing to the population genetically.”

Source: Sage Grouse Changing from Threatened to Endangered – NewsRadio 560 KPQ