Sage-Grouse

Wildlife respond to changes in their environment, some of which are dramatic and others subtle. To fully understand the factors that drive changes in populations and communities, we need better information on wildlife ecology in natural and human-altered landscapes. We conduct research and provide technical assistance to address applied questions about the ecology and conservation of wildlife...

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) are the most visible of >350 plant and wildlife species that depend on sagebrush. Their conservation status was determined by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2010 to be warranted for listing but precluded by higher priorities. Habitat and population fragmentation, coupled with inadequate regulatory mechanisms to control development on public...

Fuel conditions and fire regimes in western forests and deserts have been altered due to past land management, biological invasions, and recent extreme weather events and climate shifts. These changes have created extreme fire risk to local and regional communities, threatening their economic health related to wildland recreation, forest production, livestock operations, and other uses of public...

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

The USGS, the BLM, the FWS, and the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies have developed of a new DOI-funded effort, known as SageDAT.

Greater Sage-grouse are iconic birds found only in the Great Basin of the western U.S. Known for their showy courting displays, sage-grouse rely on native sagebrush habitat to shelter their young. Dr. Pete Coates is providing resource managers with the tools and information they need to conserve sage-grouse as invasive plants, evolving wildfire patterns, and energy development change the Great...

The Greater Sage-grouse is a small bird found only in the sagebrush steppe of the Great Basin. Invasions of non-native grasses, evolving wildfire patterns, grazing from livestock, and human land uses are changing this unique ecosystem. WERC’s Dr. Pete Coates studies sage-grouse populations to determine how these influences could affect the bird and other wildlife in the future.

This goal of this study is to develop a spatially explicit habitat-population modeling framework to assess the viability of Gunnison sage-grouse and each of the seven populations (Gunnison Basin and six satellite populations).

Loss and fragmentation of sagebrush habitats are among the primary causes of decline in greater and Gunnison sage-grouse. A fundamental need for species conservation is to identify and subsequently maintain a set of connected populations. Landscape genetics combines the fields of population genetics and landscape ecology to investigate how landscape and environmental features affect connectivity...

Increased wildfire-induced loss of sagebrush in North American shrublands are outpacing natural recovery and leading to substantial habitat loss for sagebrush-obligate species like sage-grouse. The products and information developed for this project will help restoration practitioners, biologists, and land managers evaluate the efficacy of sagebrush restoration approaches as well as their ability...

USGS and university researchers analyzed changes in male sage-grouse lek counts in Wyoming from 1984 through 2008, measuring disturbance owing to oil and gas development.

USGS scientists and partners investigated sage-grouse population trends in Wyoming and at multiple spatial scales.