This Instruction Memorandum (IM) provides the policy on tracking and reporting surface disturbance and reclamation within and outside of Greater Sage-grouse (GRSG) Priority Habitat Management Areas (PHMA). The Approved Resource Management Plan Amendments for the Rocky Mountain and Great Basin GRSG Regions and Nine Approved Resource Management Plans in the...
This Instruction Memorandum (IM) provides guidance for incorporating and analyzing thresholds and responses, as appropriate, into terms and conditions of grazing permits and the associated National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis within designated Greater Sage-Grouse (GRSG) Habitat as described in the Records of Decision for the Approved Resource Management Plan...
A major goal in greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus, hereafter ‘sage-grouse’) conservation is to spend limited resources efficiently by conserving large and functioning populations. We used maximum count data from leks (n = 4,885) to delineate high abundance population centers that contain 25, 50, 75, and 100% of the known breeding...
Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) were once found in most grassland and sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) habitats east of the Cascades in Oregon. European settlement and conversion of sagebrush steppe into agricultural production led to extirpation of the species in the Columbia Basin by the early part of the 1900s, but sagebrush...
The overall goal of the Greater Sage-grouse Comprehensive Conservation Strategy (Strategy) is to maintain and enhance populations and distribution of sagegrouse by protecting and improving sagebrush habitats and ecosystems that sustain these populations. This Strategy outlines the critical need to develop the associations among local, state, provincial, tribal, and federal...
Effective conservation of the greater sage-grouse and its habitat requires a collaborative, landscape-scale, science-based approach that includes strong federal plans, a strong commitment to conservation on state and private lands, and a proactive strategy to reduce the risk of rangeland fires.
Since public lands make up roughly half of the...
Trends in greater sage-grouse breeding populations are typically indexed by determining the peak number of males attending a lek in a lekking season. Numerous studies have estimated negative trends in sage-grouse breeding populations over time via data collected for the last 50 years. However, the inherent bias in data collection...