Declining sage grouse populations in the West may get a new chance to rebound thanks to federal judge B. Lynn Winmill, who yesterday threw out a 2005 Bush administration decision not to list the quirky bird as threatened or endangered.

The greater sage grouse was among the species considered for protection during the tenure of Julie MacDonald, the meddlesome former deputy assistant secretary of wildlife, fish, and parks, who resigned this year after the Interior Department’s inspector general concluded that she had broken federal rules and improperly handled the decision.

Judge Winmill called the original decision “tainted,” and noted that MacDonald prevented scientists who supported listing the grouse from having a say in the process. He sent the matter back to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for reconsideration. Let’s hope they refrain from the “intimidation tactics” used by MacDonald and look at the science this time.

The Idaho Statesman says that a decision to protect the bird as endangered could be comparable to the federal listing of the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest. But unlike the spotted owl, which was mainly pitted against the timber industry in the battle for habitat, the sage grouse faces a myriad of threats from oil and gas development to sprawl to West Nile Virus.