Wyoming ? An Interior Department announcement Friday that it won’t list sage grouse as an endangered or threatened species opens the way for continued development of the West’s wind energy and oil and gas industries.

Those industries will still face scrutiny in sage grouse habitat but much less so than if the bird were listed.

The government concluded that listing the chicken-sized brown bird as threatened or endangered is warranted but precluded by higher priorities — other species considered in greater danger.

But Interior will classify the bird among species that are candidates for federal protection, which are assigned a priority number between one and 12. The sage grouse has been given an eight, putting it two-thirds of the way down the scale as a priority for federal protection.

Sage grouse have experienced a 90 percent decline in their numbers and a 50 percent decline in their sagebrush habitat from a century ago, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said.