JEROME — Much of the high-desert West is holding its breath this week, awaiting news Friday as to whether the greater sage grouse will be added to the endangered species list.

But in Twin Falls County, one group of residents and government biologists is continuing its push to help the bird.

The Shoshone Basin Local Working Group, first formed in 1994, is looking to tackle grouse projects in the western part of its territory, which generally encompasses the southern portion of the county east of Salmon Falls Creek. And that means also expanding its membership.

More than 20 people received a briefing on the group and the grouse at a public information meeting Tuesday evening at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game regional office. Besides some original members, they included private ranchers, a representative of J.R. Simplot Co., hunters, volunteers who help with annual grouse counts and members of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service.

Local working groups in Idaho fall under Fish and Game and serve as advisory bodies that develop voluntary plans to benefit the birds.

The Shoshone Basin grouppredates even Idaho’s state sage-grouse plan and covers just 180,000 acres, small for a local working group. Fish and Game biologist Dave Musil said he believes it was the first such working group in the West, though one in Colorado disagrees.

The group’s original mission statement focuses on providing for the needs of both grouse and grazing livestock, and its objectives included improving riparian areas and overall habitat, said member Rich Yankey. The work culminated in a 2008 management plan focused on 34,000 acres in the southeast part of the basin.

Now, the group wants to harness the powers of consensus again for its western segment, an area where a decent amount of data has been collected but no one has been able to closely examine grazing allotments, Yankey said.

The grouse face a large number of threats in the West, and even with the group’s existing efforts their numbers have sunk in the basin, said Fish and Game regional wildlife manager Randy Smith.

Asked near the end how a listing announcement would affect the group’s work, leader Elena Shaw said she believes it will still be able to move forward along the same path. Its current goal is to keep the bird from being listed, she said.

“But if it is listed, I think the goal will be to get it off the list,” she said.