Land Management

The Bureau of Land Management Recreation and Visitor Services Program regularly conducts recreational visitor satisfaction surveys. The USGS Social and Economic Analysis Branch is assessing the visitor survey effort and recommending updates to the current effort.

The greater sage-grouse has been a focus of scientific investigation and management action for the past two decades. The sheer number of scientific publications can be a challenge for managers tasked with evaluating and determining the need for potential updates to existing planning documents.

USGS scientists are developing multiple products to directly inform the Bureau of Land Management's Sage-grouse Habitat Assessment Framework process.

Using the existing rangewide genetic and demographic data, scientists from the USGS, USDA Forest Service, and University of Waterloo will assess the relative contributions of habitat and genetic connectivity to lek size and stability.

Prioritizing landscapes for sage-grouse habitat conservation is complicated by long-term changes in climate.

USGS and Colorado State University scientists are modelling multispecies connectivity through intact and disturbed areas of the sagebrush landscape.

USGS and Colorado State University scientists will use data about sage-grouse and mule deer population data across Wyoming to evaluate the effectiveness of disturbance thresholds and investigate the efficacy of other disturbance metrics.

USGS and Colorado State University scientists are using data and hierarchical community models to create predictive surfaces of bird use by habitat type and comparing these predictions to habitat prioritization derived from sage-grouse locations.

Little is known about the role of fire in the sagebrush ecosystem within the range of the Gunnison sage-grouse ( Centrocercus minimus), and fire has been mostly absent from these systems in the 20th century, partially owing to active fire suppression.

USGS scientists are using a time-varying approach to monitor and predict recovery of sagebrush ecosystems following disturbance.

USGS led an interagency team of Federal and State agency biologists to develop a report that synthesizes greater sage-grouse scientific literature.

The USGS is developing science and decision support tools to inform policy and management decisions about various aspects of the energy development life cycle.