When it comes to conserving the greater sage-grouse, there’s a saying many are familiar with. “What’s good for the bird is good for the herd.” The pitch made is that management practices which enhance the bird’s habitat are in the best long term interest for ranchers.

Some make the pitch by arguing the management required to meet these goals increases a rancher’s profitability. Some make the pitch that the management required to meet these goals is small potatoes compared to the regulations in store if the species got an endangered species listing. People argue whichever case they are passionate about.

Some argue for less consideration of the rancher perspective. Some, it turns out, argue for more. They would go so far as to turn the original saying around.

The University of California, Santa Clara, recently took part in a study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. Their work found that policies that seek to restrict grazing on western public lands for the sake of the sage-grouse, may unintendedly wind up causing more damage to the bird’s population long term.

If it sounds laughable, perhaps you aren’t familiar with systems theory: the idea that if everything was as easy as we thought it was, the world would look a lot differently. Unintended consequences usually hatch from the eggs of our best intentions. We seldom seem them in that light, generally convinced they hatched somewhere else, from someone else’s intentions.

The UC Santa Clara study found that restricting grazing would harm rancher profitability, placing them in a spot where they would be even more likely to make financial decisions that would be destructive of critical grouse habitat. When compared to the conversion of range acres for crops or development, cows could actually be the grouse’s best friend.

In other words: what’s good for the herd is also good for the bird.

The picture has often been drawn that conservation and profitability are at odds to one another. You can find someone peddling it anytime you turn around. A more accurate portrayal of the world that exists, however, would paint them linked. The existence of the latter is of great help to the former.

In portraying it otherwise our best intentions could have some significant unintended consequences of their own, leaving our prairie chickens to come home and roost in a space hardly as welcoming as we had hoped.

Shannon had to work until 7 on Good Friday. The church of St. Francis of Assisi is near her work, and they had a 7 p.m. Good Friday Mass. So I went early, got us a seat, and she made it in the nick of time.

In all the homilies I have heard given that day, this year was the first time I ever heard what Barabbas meant, “Son of the father,” or that Barabbas had a first name, “Jesus.” It sent me scrambling to Wikipedia when I got home.

There, I found this: “Barabbas’ name appears as bar-Abbas in the Greek texts of the gospels. It is derived ultimately from the Aramaic בר-אבא, Bar-abbâ, “son of the father”. Some ancient manuscripts of Matthew 27:16–17 have the full name of Barabbas as “Jesus Barabbas” and this was probably the name as originally written in the text.^[13] Early church father Origen was troubled by the fact that his copies of the gospels gave Barabbas’ name as “Jesus Barabbas” and declared that since it was impossible he could have had such a holy name, “Jesus” must have been added to Barabbas’ name by a heretic.^[14] It is possible that later scribes, copying the passage, removed the name “Jesus” from “Jesus Barabbas” to avoid dishonour to the name of Jesus the Messiah.^[15]”

The Deacon delivering the homily this year remarked it about the tale of two Jesus’.  The first, Barabbas, was the one people wanted in their Jesus:  a revolutionary who would restore power.  The second, Christ, had an approach different than that.

It seemed a topical message that day.  Perhaps it has been topical all days.  Perhaps it always will be.