John,
Every spring male sage grouse gather to strut their stuff in riveting mating rituals. Punctuating their displays with swishing, hooting and popping sounds, males bob their heads, fan their tail feathers, raise their wings, and expand and contract distinctive yellow air sacs to compete for females' favor.
Sage grouse once inhabited 13 western U.S. states and three Canadian provinces. Now they’re slowly disappearing. Oil and gas drilling, roads, mining, livestock grazing and climate change are degrading the Sagebrush Sea habitat the birds depend on.
But it’s not too late to save these fancy dancing icons of the West. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is crafting a plan to guide decisions across nearly 67 million acres of sage grouse habitat overseen by the agency.
Unfortunately the BLM’s current favorite plan falls woefully short of what sage grouse need. It allows harmful activities like mining and oil and gas development to continue and fails to properly protect their habitat by not designating any as “areas of critical environmental concern”— units of public land that need special management. Granting this higher-level status to all priority sage grouse habitat would give the birds a fighting chance at recovery and reverse the extinction spiral.
Protecting these flamboyant fliers and their habitat benefits hundreds of other species that depend on the Sagebrush Sea ecosystem, including pygmy rabbits, pronghorns, elk, mule deer, golden eagles, native trout, and migratory and resident birds.
The science is clear on what’s needed to protect greater sage grouse: greater protection for habitat across all their range. Tell the BLM to stand up for sage grouse and protect their home.
