Discover the analysis of sage grouse and sage habitat within the Nice Basin of Utah with Dave Dahlgren, PhD, a pacesetter in sage grouse science.
On this episode, Gabby and AJ speak to Utah-based sage grouse professional Dave Dahlgren. As a sage grouse researcher and biologist, Dave teaches us about large quantities of habitat sage grouse must survive and explains human-centric points impacting their continued existence.
That is the primary episode of a two-part sequence about sage grouse in Utah.
If you wish to help this manufacturing, take a look at the Mission Upland Podcast Patreon. You may as well subscribe to the Mission Upland Podcast on Spotify.
Nice Basin Sage Grouse – Half One – Audio Transcript
Gabby: Aj, have you ever ever seen a sage grouse earlier than?
AJ: I’ve. I’ve hunted them in Montana. I can bear in mind how insane it was to see them for the primary time. A gaggle of mature males. I used to be filming at that actual second, not capturing, however I used to be awestruck by how huge they have been. It’s very apparent of why folks name these large males bombers.
Gabby: They are surely large. I’ve had the privilege of searching them in Wyoming, they usually actually couldn’t be a extra stunning fowl. They’re an unbelievable image of sagebrush ecosystems.
AJ: Sage grouse usually symbolize a powder keg and the battle over environmental points. The complexity of the subject lends itself to challenges which have been met in nationwide politics. So as an alternative of tackling all of sage grouse points right here, we’ll hone into a selected area, on this case, the Nice Basin in Western Utah.
Gabby: And as you’ll study on this episode, not all sage grouse habitat is created equal. The subject of sage grouse conservation spans throughout 9 states in a small portion of Southern Canada, and every place comes with its personal distinctive points.
AJ: This can be a nice instance of how funding for science. Federal and state companies large wild areas, and the experience of academia is crucial to not solely how we succeed going ahead, but additionally how we all know a lot already immediately. As we are going to study on this episode, science can remedy and mitigate many recreation species points.
Gabby: We may also have an unlikely look from a non-game fowl that has a stake on this story as properly. The Pinyon Jay.
John Muir: When in full plumage, he’s an exquisite fowl with an extended agency sharp pointed tail, which in strolling is barely raised and swing sideways, forwards and backwards. With every step, the male is handsomely marked. With black and white on the neck, again and wings, weighs 5 or 6 kilos and measures about 30 inches in ling.
The feminine is clad largely in plain brown and isn’t so giant. They often wander from the sage plains into the open nut pine and juniper woods, however by no means enter the principle coniferous forest. It’s only within the broad dry half desert sage plains that they’re fairly at dwelling the place the climate is blazing sizzling and summer time chilly in winter. – December, 1898, John Muir.
AJ: The sound you have been listening to is a male sage grouse throughout their courtship show on Alec within the springtime. A big male can push the scales at seven kilos. This makes them the most important of North America’s native grouse species. They’re a recreation fowl that will get quite a lot of consideration, and never simply from hunters or for the way spectacular they’re, however due to the place and the way they dwell.
Gabby: Earlier than we go any additional, let’s first study some background details about the larger sage grouse from a species professional, Dave Dahlgren.
Dave: Most individuals I work with, like company clever and stuff, they’re sick of speaking about sage grouse. I like ’em nonetheless, and I may speak about ’em all day. My identify’s David Dahlgren. I’m an affiliate professor and Rangeland Wildlife Extension specialist at Utah State College.
So the larger sage grouse occupies, or at the very least traditionally occupied most of Western North America the place we had sage beginning methods. We’ve misplaced about half of our sage cross habitat within the Western US and thus this species sort of represents this. larger biome, and a few folks would possibly use the phrase umbrella species. And so, so it’s actually a, a illustration of this. There’s over 300 wildlife species of some kind use or are depending on the sage struggle system. In order that’s, that’s actually the larger problem with sage grouse.
AJ: Dave has been working with sage grouse because the early two 1000’s. In actual fact, sage grouse analysis is his bread and butter. By means of his work, he’s discovered some really unbelievable issues about sage grouse, together with simply how a lot area they require to outlive. That is about a number of area, and Dave has actually pinned down a really black and white scientific clarification of how a lot area sage grouse must survive.
Dave: When you consider a lek, okay, so the lek is a single level on the map, proper? And also you draw a 20 mile buffer. Okay? So a 20 mile radius round that lek. So now you bought this large circle and you then take a look at, that’s creating an space now, proper? If 25% or much less of that circle, that buffer. Is sagebrush 25% or much less, likelihood of that l persisting is zero. It’s not gonna persist. Okay? Between 20% and 50% of that buffer being dominated by sagebrush, okay? Then you have got this sliding scale. The nearer you get to 50%, the nearer you’re attending to about an 75, 80% likelihood that that Lexi’s gonna persist. And the nearer you get to 25, the nearer to to zero, you bought this sliding scale.
When you go over 50% of that buffer, now you’re above 80% and also you’re getting near 90. When you go above two thirds, two thirds or larger, you’re virtually at a one a likelihood of 100% or a 1.0. That lack is gonna persist. That’s the greatest problem with sage grouse, and we spend all this time engaged on, properly, different forbs listed here are there grasses right here? Are there all these parts when that’s the problem? Is that this, this 20 mile buffer across the lek? And the way a lot of that’s sagebrush?
Gabby: This two thirds rule that Dave describes actually helps me grasp simply how a lot habitat, sage grouse must persist. Eager about how regional teams of grouse require a 20 mile buffer round their liking grounds actually drives dwelling the concept of the size at which sage grouse administration takes place.
Sage grouse are really in contrast to pheasant on this method. They want greater than 1 / 4 part of excellent habitat to outlive. They want 20, 40, 50 plus miles of contiguous appropriate habitat as a way to exist.
AJ: Only a heads up, we did censor a number of the dialogue to guard particular places. Okay?
Dave: Take into consideration an elk. In my winter right here, you might need a searching season. Bam. It’s 40, 50 miles over right here. Proper? That’s how sage grouse use the panorama and that’s what causes them. That’s that persistence factor. I’ll provide you with an instance. We, um, we’re doing a venture that lek of Utah, proper? And simply handed that criminal of that hell, okay?
So we have been up in that nation and we captured a feminine, we put a radio on her. She was simply, we did a, we couldn’t discover her, so we did a flight. And we discovered her on a nest, and she or he was by the Idaho. That’s 55 miles away. We caught, we caught her on a L right here and she or he nested 55 miles from there. And what’s attention-grabbing about Sage Home is you have got a portion of the inhabitants they may spend their entire life proper in and round that lek.
After which different components of that inhabitants would possibly make these, you realize, mid-size actions after which different components could do these 50 mile, you realize, sort of actions. And so, however we’d like that variation as a result of some years it’s benefit to remain across the lek. Some years it’s extra advantageous to go away and, and be additional away, spend that vitality to be there.
And so it’s that, it’s not that we simply have one or the opposite, we, we’d like that, that variation to persist by time.
John Muir: In leafy areas blessed with copious rains, we discovered to measure the productive capability of the soil by its pure vegetation. However this rule is nearly wholly and relevant right here for however its savage, nakedness, scarce in any respect. Veiled by a sparse development of sage. The desert soil of the nice basin is as wealthy within the parts that in wet areas, rise and ripen into meals as that of some other state within the union. – 1918, John Muir.
AJ: This story sits us within the Nice Basin within the twenty first century. However earlier than immediately, the Nice Basin reveals fossil proof of human habitation relationship again to 12,000 BC. By 1869, the primary railroad handed by and the settlement of the west was properly underway. In line with nasa, the Earth’s crust within the basin and vary windfall is steadily increasing, cracking into a whole bunch of faults because it thins over tens of millions of years. Land on one facet of the faults, rows forming mountains, even because the land on the opposite facet sank into basins.
Gabby: The Better Sage Grouse vary stretches throughout the Western United States and into Canada. This fowl might be discovered from Washington to Japanese Montana, all the way in which right down to Northwestern, Colorado and Japanese California. Though this fowl is a sagebrush, obligate, or a species that requires sagebrush to outlive, not all lands lined in sagebrush are equal.
The sage step of Japanese Montana appears to be like rather a lot completely different than the semi desert sage lands present in Utah’s nice basin, which is the place Dave Dahlgren’s analysis takes place. The Nice Basin is an eco area and mainly a watershed that has no outlet. So the Nice Salt Lake is the sort of. Flagship Terminus, you realize, nice Basin Lake.
Dave: It was mainly created by the historic or Prehistorical, lake Bonneville, and that was a, an inland, large lake that lined most of Nevada, western facet of Utah and a bit bit up into Oregon and possibly even Idaho. However mainly something that drains in inside to both the Nice Salt Lake or any of these different inside Salt Lake sort areas, salty Lakes sort areas, is the nice basin.
AJ: As a New Englander, generally I’ve a tricky time greedy the sheer measurement of the general public lands out west, and subsequently the dynamics of their social impacts. Once I take into consideration tough grouse in New England, it’s extra about public entry on personal land like Timberlands, and the significance of state companies, the private and non-private landowner relations to maintain these locations freely open.
So I’ve to ask, what proportion of the sage grouse inhabitants happens on public lands?
Gabby: From my understanding, throughout the sage grouse vary, the vast majority of it’s situated on public lands, significantly on Bureau of Land Administration or BLM land. Utah particularly is about 70% public land. Its Western portion is a part of the Nice Basin, and almost 8 million acres of it’s owned by the BLM alone.
That’s about 12,500 sq. miles.
AJ: All proper. To be clear, that’s larger than the state of New Hampshire. So, is all of that sage-grouse habitat?
Gabby: Form of in response to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology web site, most of that space is included within the larger sage grouse historic vary. At the moment, sage grouse happen largely across the edges of Utah’s borders, the place the elevation is larger and there’s extra personal lands.
The nice Basin itself shouldn’t be truly tremendous nice grouse habitat. Because it seems, sage grouse want extra than simply sagebrush to outlive. They depend upon perennial grasses and Forbes that dwell between the sage, sage, grouse, particularly hens, depend on these nutritious meals to remain wholesome previous to the breeding season. In the course of the brooding season, chicks depend on bugs as a protein wealthy meals supply. Bugs are extra strongly related to areas with Forbes and grasses than giant swaths of sagebrush. With out these assets, grasses are most likely extra about cowl.
Dave: They don’t eat a lot grass. Um, sage grass don’t. However I feel the larger factor that’s most likely extra particular, and also you don’t, for those who’re not into this world, it’s possible you’ll not realize it.
And for those who consider a steady line between like north, uh, Japanese Montana and also you come straight down into. Like, uh, Southern Nevada. So as an alternative of an east-west line, simply tilt it throughout that the variation in sagebrush methods and communities throughout that line is unbelievable. And but this one species inhabits all of them.
So whenever you get right down to Southern Nevada or the place I do quite a lot of work in southern Utah, you don’t have quite a lot of grasses in Forbes in these methods. In actual fact. One ecological time period for it’s semi desert, sagebrush, semi desert. So it simply doesn’t have the grasses and Forbes or the potential to have grasses and Forbes but, whenever you’re up in that a part of Montana, it’s possible you’ll like I, the primary time I visited I used to be like, this isn’t sage grass habitat.
There’s no, why would sagebrush dwell right here? There’s not sufficient sagebrush and but. There they have been. I used to be discovering them. So it’s that unbelievable variation that, that turns into difficult on how and what pristine habitat appears to be like like in southern Nevada, Southern Utah versus, you realize, northeastern Montana. That’s, these are very completely different so far as what creates pristine habitat.
I feel the following greatest factor that involves my thoughts, I talked earlier about this variation in habitat throughout the vary, you realize, from extra of a grassland, with just a few sagebrush in it. Up north to a semi desert. You understand, as we transfer additional southwest, we, I’m truly a part of a venture that’s mixed telemetry knowledge throughout populations throughout that continuum.
And we’re taking a look at habitat choice now, and, and we’re combining all that into one large knowledge set. So we’re, we’re actually taking a look at that variation of habitat use primarily based on. The place they’re at. That wouldn’t have been potential with out, to do a habitat choice examine, it’s a must to have a ton of knowledge. You must have a, uh, simply 1000’s and 1000’s of factors for, for the fashions to truly begin to work their method by the, the evaluation.
And so it’s, uh, it’s not printed but, nevertheless it’s on its method to, to being printed. In order that’s my subsequent greatest factor. You understand, we’ve, we’ve discovered that we’d like con, we’d like, mainly focus areas for sage grass. It’s sort of a triage method, like the place do we’ve them? The place are they good, let’s maintain onto these, after which we will begin to play a bit bit otherwise with possibly areas that they’re not as extremely prone to persist. And, and that’s sort of been the method to, to say’s conservation thus far.
Gabby: Pristine habitat in Utah appears to be like rather a lot completely different than pristine habitat in Montana. In Utah, sagebrush ecosystems are up towards each naturally occurring and anthropogenic threats. Nonetheless, not all of those points essentially have unfavorable impacts. Within the subsequent a part of this episode, we’ll discover the human-centric points affecting sage grouse, which is livestock, vitality, and fences.
AJ: Let’s use agriculture as our first instance of a content material. Conservation problem that won’t essentially be as unhealthy because it appears. Livestock grazing is a big problem that folks speak about on a regular basis. When you learn an article about sage crops, you’ll hear about grazing, however there are like that many research zero that present precise detriments.
Dave: From grazing to sage grouse, I had the best chick survival reported within the literature. Over 50% of the sage crus chicks lived. That was all within the presence of grazing occurring, and in reality, I noticed some he that. I might, I can’t say that is like completely knowledge pushed and analyzed, however they virtually sought out livestock, particularly cows, they usually needed their brood in there.
And I, I used to be like, why are they doing that? After which I spotted if a coyote comes round these livestock, chase that factor out. Take a look at you cut up, proper? I’m like, oh man, possibly there’s some benefit there. When you look throughout the vary of sage grass, virtually all the big intact populations, they’re virtually all grazed.
It’s like 87% overlap of grazing in our sage. Rust populations I’ve come to see livestock on the entire is rather more appropriate with recreation birds than what we would assume. Does overgrazing occur? Yeah, nevertheless it’s normally very localized. What we overlook about once we see an area space that has been overused, that additionally means there’s different areas that weren’t overused, and we overlook about that once we consider oil and fuel out west.
Gabby: For me, the very first thing that involves thoughts is habitat fragmentation, however are oil pads occurring at excessive sufficient densities to be really negatively impacted? Nice basin sage grouse. It, it’s the vitality factor’s. Attention-grabbing. So there’s been some analysis that’s proven. It’s not till you hit a sure properly density that you simply begin to negatively impression sage grouse.
Dave: So there’s a properly density we might be at that’s lighter. And I can’t bear in mind off the highest of my head precisely what that density was per space, however the, the analysis. Did present that till you get to this density, then it’s not impacting the fowl. And so, you realize, directional drilling then can grow to be an answer for that sort of problem.
However the greatest problem with sage crafts general is scale. For me in my profession, speaking scale with Sage crafts has been the largest problem. Whether or not I’m coping with the general public and even a number of the conservation organizations or companies, it’s simply attempting to know that scale as a result of. Sage grouse.
Use the panorama like an elk. Makes use of the panorama. It’s it’s large tracks of land that have to be in contiguous sagebrush for that sage grouse to have a excessive chance of persistence.
AJ: I would like to emphasise that vitality growth can coexist with sound, sage grouse administration practices, however when greed offers our environmental points a backseat, that’s the place the wheels come off. Science-based administration shouldn’t be a zero sum recreation. Observe the science and we will all take a victory lap. These items at all times come again to habitat, habitat, habitat.
Dave: I used to be, uh, performing some analysis down — mountain in Southern Utah, and I had one other grad scholar doing his PhD with me. He was performing some prairie canine analysis and he was placing in, so it’s Utah Prairie Canine are an endangered species down there, and he was placing in these little paddocks utilizing completely different ranges of cattle grazing to see if he may have an effect on prairie canine use and vegetation and communities and stuff.
He, he saved telling me, he’s like. As a result of we put new fencing in that had by no means been there, and one of many fences ran up and over this large ridge and he’s like, I preserve seeing sage grouse hits on the fence and it appears to be like largely like male feathers and stuff. He stated, you, you must run up there and see if there’s a lek there.
Th this space was simply method off crushed path, prefer it was a two observe for miles simply to get there. And so I lastly had time one spring and I went up there and I came to visit the hill and there was 208 males dancing. On that, we discovered a lek one of many greatest leks on the mountain. Really, for those who’ve heard of Sage Grouse Administration, you’ve most likely heard of the white reflectors being put in on the highest wire of a barbed wire fence out West.
Gabby: Dave was truly part of the preliminary effort to put in them, and since that preliminary set up, he’s mirrored on whether or not or not all that point spent on the wire was truly price it.
Dave: You understand, NRCS had an enormous motion and many markers and labored with personal lands and. What I favored about NRCS’s method is that they modeled the panorama and stated, the place are we at highest threat?
Properly spherical lengths and round wintering areas, they usually actually targeted on, on these and, and I feel that was the suitable method to go. I’ll add to, nonetheless, okay, it’s similar to a searching mortality. Is it actually gonna have an effect on the inhabitants? It has, it mortality has to happen at a sure degree earlier than it begins to be additive to the inhabitants and and harm the inhabitants.
And so with all our marked birds on the market, the place we seeing fence collisions truly at a, a. Charge that was hurting the inhabitants? Not that I do know of, positively not in my work. I feel it was religion effort and I feel it positively saved some birds and I used to be all for it. We’re doing the very best we will with what we’ve, however Is fence marking the reply?
No, I don’t assume it’s the entire reply, however there’s no silver bullet to any of this, proper? I, I feel it was good. And I, I, I did quite a lot of lush venture work in Kansas and we marked fences the place we thought there may be a problem. I assumed that was a worthwhile effort as properly, however. My, my solely considered one of my issues with that’s don’t take the main target off the habitat.
That generally this stuff have a tendency to steer us. Like we’re attempting to avoid wasting all the things, proper? And we’re attempting to do all this, after which unexpectedly we overlook, no, we’d like extra linked habitat greater than we’d like markers on fences. Proper? And that’s, that’s the place I begin to have points with, with a few of these sort of issues.
John Muir: Within the variety of particular person timber and intensive vary, this curious little conifer surpasses all of the others mixed. Practically each mountain within the state is planted with it from close to the bottom to a top of from 8,000 to 9,000 ft above the ocean. Tens of 1000’s of acres happen in a single steady belt certainly considered comprehensively. The whole state appears to be fairly evenly divided into mountain ranges lined with nut pines and planes lined with sage now a swath of pines stretching from north to south. Now a swath of sage, the one black, the opposite grey one severely degree the opposite sweeping on complacently over ridge and valley and lofty crowning dome. – 1918 John Muir.
Gabby: Conifers are an attention-grabbing topic as a result of there’s one other species, the Pinyon J, that depends on pinyon juniper or PJ ecosystems So far as wildlife managers can presently inform, managing for each sage grouse and pinon js is sort of a catch 22.
Dave: What’s funding Most of my analysis proper now are these conifer points with sagebrush as a result of conifer points have the Pinyon Jay element to them.
And so we’ve this, I name it the cage match, proper? You bought the sage grouse sagebrush factor creep in right here. You then received the conifer, penny, juniper, woodlands, and the Pinyon J they usually’re, they’re coming to this head, proper? Who’s gonna win that conservation battle? ’trigger it looks like. There’s no winner. We’re taking a look at sage grouse, we’re taking a look at pinyon jays, and we’re taking a look at songbirds, sage, fowl songbirds, particularly, all on the identical time.
As a result of can we discover these locations the place we will take a look at price advantages, the place confer has come out of the hills, out of the slopes the place they belong? So. You may consider it as ecological web site. What ought to that web site actually be? They’ve come and encroached into the sagebrush, which begins to take habitat away from sage groves and different sagebrush obligate.
And but you have got this pinyon J that’s an obligate to the pinyon juniper woodlands. What will we do with that? And what’s attention-grabbing is pinyon js have been declining whereas pinion, juniper woodlands have been increasing. So it’s like, oh, wait a minute. I’ve been the one sage grouse particular person engaged on a few of these opinion J teams.
It’s been attention-grabbing to attempt to see it from, from either side, however encroachment is an enormous deal. It’s a much bigger deal within the Nice Basin than it’s in some other system so far as taking up sagebrush and actually decreasing it. I did some analysis, uh, we printed this again in about 2017 in northwest Utah the place we checked out, we had an entire bunch of Conifer remedies are available.
Most of them have been bull hogged. That’s that large drum that with the far by tooth and also you simply goes, it’s superior to see, however you undergo the stranger and it spreads all this particles of the tree round, which truly creates a pleasant seed mattress for different issues that you simply’re doing. And we, we did that up on this space and we discovered, that is the place it will get actually attention-grabbing.
We discovered sage grouse, nest survival truly elevated with remedies. Sage grouse brewed survival. So we had radio mark. Grouse and we’re following ’em. Uh, brood survival elevated with remedies, nevertheless it didn’t simply enhance within the remedy, it elevated in intact sagebrush subsequent to the remedy. So sage grouse, they’re area issues, proper?
And the extra open area you have got open being treeless. The, the extra, the higher it’s for the sage grouse. So simply by creating that larger contiguous area, then the grouse benefited. So even when they weren’t within the remedy, they nonetheless benefited by being related to the remedy. And, uh, we have been capable of present that with a few of our knowledge, which I assumed was, is actually attention-grabbing impact that it was having on the market.
What I don’t know is what did we do to opinion Chase whereas we’re doing all that? I don’t know.
Gabby: What we’ve discovered thus far is area. House is crucial for sage grouse. That two thirds rule that Dave taught us about is such instance of why we’d like public lands. So that is right here lengthy after we’re gone, we’ve explored the challenges of man from vitality defenses all the way in which to nature with Conifer.
AJ: However the Nice Basin, a semi desert atmosphere, has larger threats that would completely alter the way forward for sage grouse. Within the blink of an eye fixed, threats not so simply overcome.
Gabby: Within the subsequent episode, we are going to discover these points and take a deeper take a look at Dave’s work as a result of not solely is he an achieved scientist, however his lifelong love for searching and canines intersects with sage grass analysis.
AJ: And we are going to study what’s a more practical analysis software, a pointing canine or a GPS transmitter.
Dave: One measurement doesn’t match all. We are able to’t handle all Sage grouse the identical due to this variety of habitat and group varieties. That’s what we’re attempting to know. You understand, the BLM has to have one large plan that strikes ahead for, for Sage Cross, so does the forest service, so do the states. And so how will we handle to fulfill these wants in these completely different areas after they have completely different group varieties?
That’s sort of the, that’s the most likely the closest factor I’m to the sting, to the tip of the spear.
Learn Extra
A Information to Looking Sage Grouse
Are Pinyon Jays the Subsequent Sage Grouse?
Wyoming Hunters, Stakeholders Preventing Senate File 61 Regarding Pen-Raised Sage Grouse
The Influence of Conifers in Sage Grouse Habitat
