Sage-grouse
View recorded sessions.
NV Section of the Society for Rangeland Management is hosting an all-day webinar.
Symposium recording.
Full symposium agenda.
USGS will hold a Bi-State Sage-Grouse Science Symposium. This virtual symposium will highlight the research, science, and management tools that support sage-grouse monitoring and conservation efforts in the Bi-State area of California and Nevada. Pete Coates and Western Ecological Research Center staff members will present information on:
- Population trends for greater sage-grouse within the Bi-State DPS and across sage-grouse range
- Seasonal and life-stage mapping of sage-grouse habitat in the Bi-State DPS
- Sage-grouse response to wildfire
- Impacts of increases of feral horse and common raven populations on sage-grouse populations
- Lessons learned from sage-grouse translocation efforts
- A targeted annual warning system to inform adaptive management of sage-grouse populations
- Efficacy of conservation efforts to improve sage-grouse population performance within the Bi-State DPS
View technical note.
The threat-based model approach uses simplified ecosystem models to identify and map primary threats and determine potential management interventions. The study team found that the threat-based model supported the findings from the BLM’s land health evaluation for the O’Keeffe allotment. The threat-based model approach offered another line of evidence in assessing upland standards. It also proved to be a valuable tool for communicating with stakeholders, as it provided a spatial depiction of habitat condition and threats through maps and a framework to link threats to management actions. The BLM needs to further apply and study this methodology, but there is potential to use the threat-based model to streamline the land health evaluation process and provide a consistent assessment framework across public and private lands.
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Sage-grouse increasingly selected areas closer to conifer removals and were 26% more likely to use removal areas each year after removal. Sage-grouse were most likely to select areas where conifer cover had been reduced by ≤10%. The proportion of available locations having a high relative probability of use increased from 5% to 31% between 2011 and 2017 in the treatment area and locations with the lowest relative probability of use decreased from 57% to 21% over the same period. Dynamics in relative probability of use at available locations in the control area were stochastic or stable and did not demonstrate clear temporal trends relative to the treatment area. Targeted conifer removal is an effective tool for increasing usable space for sage-grouse during the breeding season and for restoring landscapes affected by conifer expansion.
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The encroachment of pinyon-juniper woodlands into sagebrush habitat in the Great Basin Ecoregion of the western USA, represents a potential source of habitat degradation for sagebrush-associated wildlife species. To restore sagebrush habitat, managers are conducting large-scale conifer removal efforts within the Great Basin, particularly within Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) priority areas for conservation. Such largescale habitat modification efforts may result in unintended ecological trade-offs for wildlife. To investigate these trade-offs, we used community science data to develop species distribution models for two sagebrush and three pinyon-juniper associated bird species of conservation concern in the Great Basin. We evaluated the predictive performance of our models with an independent dataset of presence locations derived from systematic monitoring programs. We then simulated conifer removal across the Great Basin and mapped habitat gains and losses for our study species. Despite differing land cover associations, 31%-51% of suitable habitat for our study species coincided with Greater Sage-Grouse priority areas for conservation. Our conifer removal scenario increased suitable habitat by 6%-17% for sagebrush associates and reduced habitat by 11%-41% for pinyon-juniper associates. We identified areas of the Great Basin where conifer removal expanded habitat for sagebrush associates without concurrent habitat loss for pinyon-juniper associates. Our results provide guidance for conducting vegetation management in the Great Basin while addressing the habitat needs for multiple focal species. Our methods, which use freely available community science data and geospatial layers, can easily be transferred to other species and ecoregions.
Workshop webpage and registration.
The Western Agencies Sage and Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse Workshop is a biennial meeting held in even numbered years sanctioned by WAFWA. The workshop provides a forum where leading sage and sharp-tailed grouse managers and researchers share research results, management strategies, and emerging issues in the realms of grouse management throughout North America. The 33rd Sage and Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse Workshop will be hosted by Utah on August 15-18th, 2022 in Logan, Utah on the Utah State University Inn and Conference Center.
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On average, for every 50% increase in horse abundance over maximum appropriate management levels, our model predicted an annual decline in sage-grouse abundance by 2.6%. Horse abundance at or below maximum appropriate management levels coincided with sage-grouse λ estimates that were consistent with trends at non-horse areas elsewhere in the study region.
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Collectively managing sage-grouse data collected by eleven states within the United States since the 1950s is very challenging, and analyses of these data present hurdles due to its large volume and breadth of methods used to record field observations. We present software that aids in the compilation of these disparate databases that can support population analyses and management of sage-grouse by states.
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Highlights:
- Automated and repeatable method to improve scientific integrity of long-term data
- Analyzed long-term data to improve monitoring policies and efforts
- Increased collaborations between federal and state agencies to improve data quality
- Recommendations for managing existing and new long-term monitoring data
- Spatiotemporal heatmap video of Greater sage-grouse counts across North American
View article.
Retrospective sensitivity analysis suggested the dynamics in populations growth rates were driven by increases in juvenile, adult, first nest, and yearling survival in the Treatment relative to the Control. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of targeted conifer removal as a management strategy for conserving sage-grouse populations in sagebrush steppe affected by conifer expansion. Examples of positive, population-level responses to habitat management are exceptionally rare for terrestrial vertebrates, and this study provides promising evidence of active management that can be implemented to aid recovery of an imperiled species and biome.