Within the closing a part of our Nice Basin Sage Grouse podcast, we discover the threats of cheatgrass, fireplace, and space constancy, together with the historical past of GPS monitoring sage grouse in Utah.
On this episode, Gabby and AJ discuss to Affiliate Professor and Rangeland Wildlife Extension Specialist at Utah State College, Dave Dahlgren. As a sage grouse researcher and scientist, Dave explores the specter of cheatgrass and fireplace within the Nice Basin to habitat. He additionally shares his expertise with altering expertise in radio telemetry and GPS monitoring and the way his pointing canines have performed a task in his analysis. Lastly, we focus on one of the crucial influential and limiting components in sage grouse survival: space constancy.
That is the second episode of a two-part collection about sage grouse in Utah.
Take heed to: Nice Basin Sage Grouse Half One
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Nice Basin Sage Grouse Podcast – Half Two – Audio Transcript
AJ: I’ve legit discovered extra about sage grouse up to now two weeks than I’ve in my whole life.
Gabby: No kidding. Speaking to Dave is like taking a masterclass in sage grouse ecology.
AJ: We made the choice to separate this episode into two elements to make this complete factor extra digestible and to maintain it underneath half-hour.
Gabby: So if you happen to recall, partly one, we talked about the place the Nice Basin is, the sage grouse that dwell there, and a few human-based threats to those birds.
AJ: Some individuals at residence may be asking themselves how Dave has discovered a lot about sage grouse. We’re gonna discover that on this episode, which comes from his use of GPS transmitters in addition to pointing canines. However there are nonetheless looming threats to the Nice Basin sage grouse inhabitants, and we’re gonna introduce a really insidious character—the invasive species, cheatgrass.
Gabby: Cheatgrass, water, local weather, and fireplace are a doubtlessly disastrous recipe for destruction on this delicate ecosystem. On this episode, AJ and I additionally establish one thing we expect is an neglected motive why larger sage grouse are such an at-risk species: constancy.
NASA Technical Report Server, October tenth, 1972: My closing report. In abstract, Earth-oriented satellite tv for pc expertise gives new alternatives to delve extra successfully and extra deeply than beforehand attainable into some points of the habits, physiology, and ecology of free-roaming animals of their pure ecosystem—particularly in distant areas. These alternatives come at a time when an pressing want exists for correct details about the migratory patterns of endangered species of whales, the actions and habits of polar bears all through the Arctic, migrations of caribou in areas of projected oil pipelines, and the migratory habits and island-finding methods in commercially necessary species of huge sea turtles. New fireplace regimes and overgrazing by home livestock current related issues affecting the way forward for the overall world ecosystem. – Helmut Buchner, Senior Ecologist
AJ: The foundation of how we’re studying a lot about sage grouse nowadays is GPS expertise. Dave has labored by way of the evolution of monitoring expertise, from triangulating radio transmitters, or telemetry, to GPS backpacks.
Gabby: Utilizing GPS expertise to trace sage grouse actions is a cornerstone of Dave’s work. The sheer quantity of knowledge that trendy GPS items gather has instructed researchers a lot about every day and seasonal sage grouse actions. Nonetheless, it hasn’t all the time been like this. When Dave first began working with grouse, he used radio telemetry.
Dave: I’ve been at this since 2002. That’s after I began graduate faculty, and after I began trapping sage grouse, we had been utilizing little VHF transmitters. They had been little barrel batteries with a necklace, so it’d go proper across the sage grouse’s neck, and it simply had an enormous, lengthy antenna that shot down the again. It might ship out a sign—simply beep, beep, beep.
Proper. And that’s what we used to trace birds. So we would have liked a floor crew of so many individuals. I spent—I can’t inform you what number of years on a four-wheeler—simply going in every single place with the antenna, making an attempt to listen to.
For my PhD work, that they had simply come out with these little, like, one-and-a-half-gram VHF radios. They had been tiny. We might go in, put a radio on the mom, comply with her to her nest, then, when she hatched—inside 24 hours—we’d go in both within the morning or the night when it was chilly and she or he was brooding. We’d get her off her brood and gather all these one-day-old chicks, then suture these little radios between their wings.
Every radio had somewhat tube on the highest and backside, after which we’d comply with them round. We needed to know what their survival fee was and if we may inform what was killing them. We had GPS expertise on huge sport and different giant species for some time, however with birds, ornithologists have rules. You wish to be 3% or much less of the physique weight to your tag—5% is the max you are able to do.
So we actually needed to get into that 20-gram vary—someplace within the twenties or much less—for a feminine sage grouse to deal with the burden of that tag with out affecting her survival. That didn’t occur till about 2010. What we do now could be put them round their hips in what we name a rump mount. They go across the legs, up into the groin, and again across the hips. You simply tighten that down so it sits proper above their rump feathers, balancing it on the again. We use Teflon ribbon and stitch in somewhat little bit of elastic to allow them to nonetheless bounce, get into flight, and do all these sorts of issues.
Now, our GPS radios are down within the teenagers. I simply ordered some 15-gram radios and a few 10-gram ones. When you get into GPS, it goes in all these instructions. The only is a store-on-board, which takes information and retains it onboard. You then are available with a base station and antenna utilizing a UHF sign. When you join, it downloads all of your information. Numerous those I used required you to get inside 200 yards of them, which was tedious. Then, we discovered an organization that’s legit—we’re getting two, three, even 5 miles away, and we will nonetheless obtain the info.
There are additionally GSM or mobile transmitters. They don’t have a full SIM card, however they hook into cellphone protection and ship information that means. The issue is, if you happen to take grouse habitat in Western North America and invert it, that’s the place you’ve gotten the perfect cell protection. If you happen to invert cell protection, then you’ve gotten the perfect sage grouse habitat. So, having protection and marked birds is fairly robust. I’ve by no means had it’s profitable.
Then, we had satellite tv for pc radios. They might take about six places a day, and each three days, a satellite tv for pc would go over and gather the info. The information would go to an organization in France, after which I’d get an e mail with my information. That was actually cool. With telemetry, if I received one chook location per week, I used to be doing very well. With GPS, I get six places a day. And now, with store-on-board, we’re getting a location each 20 minutes. The quantity of knowledge is simply loopy, and it’s fascinating to look at. Sage grouse will spend numerous time in a single space, after which, increase, they’re 10 miles away—identical to you’d anticipate.
AJ: I needed to ask Dave the place his pointing canines intersected along with his analysis. Whereas they tried utilizing canines to seize birds, different strategies proved more practical. However canines nonetheless got here in for the win.
Dave: I didn’t have a lot alternative within the matter when it got here to canines. A bit of background on myself—I used to be born into a house with a German Shorthaired Pointer and an English Pointer. They had been my complete world rising up. I’ve three canines proper now—two German Shorthairs, Mo and Hayes, and a German Wirehaired Pointer named Josie. We simply name her Jojo.
Gabby: Dave initially used his pointers for a sage grouse analysis mission throughout his grasp’s diploma, utilizing radio telemetry. He tried to search out marked birds in 16 hundred-acre plots, however the birds he tagged had been nowhere to be discovered. He determined to work his canine by way of the plots to see if unmarked sage grouse had been utilizing them—and, lo and behold, they had been.
AJ: His canine discovered over 100 grouse. Dave examined his principle two extra instances. The primary time, one other graduate pupil with a chook canine helped—they discovered 122 grouse. The third time, Dave received help from the Utah Chukar Basis, working each plot concurrently. They discovered 121 grouse. Dave verified that no, he wasn’t double-sampling. Sage grouse had been utilizing his analysis plots—even when they weren’t the birds he initially tagged with GPS.
Gabby: Along with utilizing his canines for his personal analysis, Dave additionally co-authored the chapter titled “Use of Canine in Wildlife Analysis and Administration” within the Wildlife Society’s 2020 version of the Wildlife Strategies Guide. AJ and I are wanting ahead to dedicating an episode to this subject sooner quite than later.
Use of Canine in Wildlife Analysis and Administration, 2020: We hope this chapter won’t solely function a reference for subject practitioners but in addition stimulate new purposes of canines in our subject. Canine have limitations, and there are particular concerns in utilizing them.
Simply as with every approach or software, regardless of their limitations, they supply the wildlife skilled with talents that can not be in any other case replicated. The creator’s expertise and accessible literature point out that canines are actually an underused software. We hope that professionals discover this info helpful and think about strategies that may be employed with canines to higher handle wildlife sources.
In lots of situations, canines’ superior talents can result in higher information assortment and administration. Present advances in methods and expertise, resembling DNA evaluation, livestock safety, GPS expertise, and statistical evaluation, enhance the worth of canines for wildlife work. When used correctly, man’s finest good friend could, in actual fact, be a biologist’s finest asset.
Dave: I’ll be trustworthy—I discovered as a lot from my canines doing analysis as I did from telemetry. However simply as a lot from the canines exhibiting me grouse habits and that sort of factor. However we now have numerous college students who don’t have a searching background anymore. They didn’t develop up searching, and it’s not their fault. They simply didn’t get the prospect—so the place do they get it?
Gabby: I used to be a type of wildlife college students after I was going to highschool in Madison. Up till my senior 12 months, I had by no means been searching earlier than—I had zero expertise. So I did a program referred to as Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow, and its purpose was to show future biologists to the tradition of their searching constituents.
I received to earn my hunter’s security certification by way of that program and finally shot my first turkey the weekend after finishing it.
AJ: So what you’re saying is with out volunteers serving to expose you—a future wildlife skilled—to searching, you’ll’ve by no means ended up the place you’re at the moment?
Gabby: Precisely. So to me, this can be a large means that the general public can get entangled. Contact your native college’s wildlife division or extension specialist and supply to show college students to searching.
Aldo Leopold, 1949: Cheatgrass grows in dense stands, and every stem bears a mass of prickly awns, which render the mature plant inedible to livestock. To understand the predicament of a cow making an attempt to eat mature cheatgrass, strive strolling by way of it in low sneakers. Subject employees in cheatgrass nation put on excessive boots. These prickly awns cowl the autumn hills with a yellow blanket as flammable as cotton wool.
It’s inconceivable to totally defend cheatgrass nation from fireplace. As a consequence, the remnants of fine browse crops resembling sagebrush and bitterbrush are being burned again to greater altitudes, the place they’re much less helpful as winter forage. The decrease fringes of pine timber, wanted as winter cowl for deer and birds, are likewise being singed again to greater ranges.
AJ: If you happen to bear in mind from our final episode, conifer encroachment was an enormous subject. Now we’re gonna transfer on to the encroachment of cheatgrass.
Gabby: Cheatgrass was initially delivered to the U.S. from Eurasia, and its introduction was principally unintended. A 2003 paper from the U.S. Forest Service states: “The introduction of cheatgrass to North America in all probability occurred independently a number of instances by way of shipped ballast, contaminated crop seed, packing materials, and not less than one deliberate introduction for a university experiment in Pullman, Washington, in 1898.”
AJ: In line with the North Dakota State Library, one of many first introductions by way of ballast stumps was in 1850 in St. Louis, Missouri. An introduction close to Denver, Colorado, originated from packing materials or straw that was infested with cheatgrass seed.
Gabby: As of 2024, cheatgrass lined over 100 million acres within the Intermountain West. It is a huge deal as a result of cheatgrass outcompetes native grasses, and it’s extremely flammable. Its seeds are simply unfold, and one plant can produce wherever from 25 to five,000 seeds in a single 12 months. Fortunately, their seeds solely stay viable for one to 2 years, which is strictly why I pull the cheatgrass rising in my yard each spring earlier than it goes to seed.
AJ: Though cheatgrass spreads so simply and has lined hundreds of miles, it isn’t significantly nutritious or palatable for issues like deer, cattle, and even elk. Actually, the one factor we all know that basically eats it’s chukar. And as a lot as we’d like that many chukar within the panorama, it’s simply by no means going to be the case. Cheatgrass is unbelievable at reproducing. Actually, that’s a part of the way it received its identify.
Dave: Cheatgrass is generally a problem within the Nice Basin. It’s not as a lot of a problem as we transfer up into the Wyoming basins and out towards the Nice Plains as a result of that local weather is far more suited to perennial grasses.
We don’t see it take over methods as a lot as we do within the Nice Basin. However what cheatgrass does is definitely cheat different grasses out of moisture and vitamins—that’s its identify, proper? It grows through the winter, creating little inexperienced shoots, after which as spring comes, it’s up and going, absorbing moisture and vitamins from the soil sooner than our native perennials. So it cheats them out of these vitamins.
However the largest concern with cheatgrass is it’s a tinderbox. Its tendency is to ignite, and its fireplace return interval averages someplace between 5 and 7 years. If you happen to simply had a monoculture of cheatgrass, it will burn each 5 to seven years.
And the issue is that almost all sage crops—virtually all, apart from a pair I can consider—don’t resprout. They must develop from seed. So as soon as fireplace takes out the shrub element, you want numerous time for it to reseed and begin rising once more. If you happen to’re at decrease elevations, a lot of these sagebrush crops you see are 30 to 50 years previous. It in all probability takes about 30 years to get again to that standard sage cowl.
Gabby: Traditionally, snow has been what’s stored cheatgrass from climbing greater and better in elevation. Nonetheless, current information has proven that Utah has been experiencing wetter winters. It’s not as a result of it’s snowing extra—it’s raining extra. Rain truly helps cheatgrass cheat, permitting it to proceed outcompeting native vegetation whereas creeping greater and better.
Dave: Cheatgrass sometimes has not been a high-elevation plant, so our greater elevations have been insulated from the cheatgrass concern. One of many issues that retains cheatgrass out of upper elevations is snowpack—as a result of as soon as we now have snow laying on the bottom, cheatgrass can’t cheat. It could actually’t begin germination within the winter as a result of snow is overlaying all that. But when we get much less and fewer snow, cheatgrass can begin to do its factor.
Some current fashions I’ve seen from different researchers present cheatgrass is definitely creeping greater and better, and I’ve seen it myself within the areas I work. I’ve an space in Southern Utah the place I’ve had cheatgrass in aspen stands, and I’m like—uh, that is loopy. The issue with cheatgrass is its fireplace return interval, after which sagebrush simply can’t get a maintain once more.
Sadly, we don’t have a solution. I bear in mind visiting a lab in Oregon that makes a speciality of this, and I requested, “Okay, what’s the answer to this drawback of getting sagebrush again within the system and coping with cheatgrass?” They mentioned, “We don’t know.” I believed, “If anyone ought to know, you need to know!” However they didn’t, as a result of we simply don’t have the expertise proper now to beat the cheatgrass concern.
AJ: Issues like agriculture or fencing will not be deserving as a lot consideration as they get. After we consider how Dave’s two-thirds rule holds up for sage grouse, the impacts of cheatgrass fueling wildfires current a much more imminent problem.
Gabby: On the subject of sage grouse conservation, people are doing so much when it comes to analysis and energetic habitat administration. Nonetheless, one thing that Dave instructed us actually caught with me—it helped me perceive precisely why habitat loss and fragmentation are so unhealthy for sage grouse. It’s due to their website constancy, or quite, their space constancy.
Dave: What’s the position of constancy in sage grouse habitat use? What I imply by that’s—if we observe a hen, and she or he nests in a specific spot, likelihood is the subsequent 12 months she’ll nest inside a pair hundred yards of that very same spot. It’s not strict website constancy, like a heron rookery or a golden eagle nest the place they return to a constructed nest. As a substitute, it’s extra like space constancy—their seasonal habitat residence vary overlaps considerably from 12 months to 12 months.
A colleague in Montana has studied this, and we’ve discovered that constancy truly determines habitat choice greater than the habitat itself does. What which means is, as a result of sage grouse have used an space earlier than, they’re extra prone to return to that space—even when it’s not good for them.
For instance, let’s say an enormous fireplace comes by way of and burns out a lot of the sagebrush cowl. Their danger of mortality goes means up when there’s not sufficient sagebrush cowl, proper? However as a result of they’ve constancy to that spot, they maintain coming again, and so they simply die faster. We will restore habitat in some instances, however we will additionally create nice habitat that nothing needs to make use of—as a result of they’ve by no means used it earlier than. So how can we create constancy?
AJ: We’ve explored many sorts of points threatening sage grouse within the Nice Basin, whether or not naturally occurring or human-caused. The truth that sage grouse have such a robust space constancy can truly be an actual drawback. If these areas degrade, these birds have a a lot decrease likelihood of survival. They’re going to return there and never discover something. And once more, we now have to recollect the size at which this happens. We’re not simply speaking about 20 miles at a minimal—we’re additionally speaking about hundreds of miles on the opposite finish of the spectrum.
Gabby: These ideas of area and constancy are vastly necessary. With out area, they received’t persist. With out defending high-fidelity areas, they received’t persist. It appears to me that sustaining giant swaths of high-quality sage grouse habitat inside a 50-mile radius of excessive website constancy areas is likely one of the only methods we may also help these birds. Given the sheer variety of conservation points and the size at which they happen, conserving sage grouse is basically, actually tough.
Dave: Numerous sage grouse conservation work has shifted to native working teams. The beauty of these teams is that they’re open to anybody who cares. You turn into a stakeholder as quickly as you care. We welcome individuals to these native working group conferences. The state of Wyoming has a robust native working group program, and anyone can turn into a part of these teams.
These teams are primarily based on particular areas or areas—what we name useful resource areas—that they’re accountable for taking care of and managing. After that, there’s the political facet—exhibiting your representatives that you simply care about these points. I’ve been pleasantly stunned by how a lot representatives wish to perceive. Most of them aren’t pure useful resource specialists, however they need assistance making knowledgeable selections. And that’s an excellent factor.
Lastly, get entangled in an NGO. Simply final Saturday, we had the Utah Chukar and Wildlife Basis banquet. I had my grad college students there in order that chook hunters—principally—may see what analysis they’re doing. The Chukar Basis offers me funding yearly to help my analysis and to assist transfer the conservation needle ahead. These are necessary efforts we will all be concerned in.
AJ: A pattern you’re going to listen to in numerous these episodes is that state and federal businesses have very restricted funding and manpower to sort out these points. It will get even trickier as a result of one dimension doesn’t match all. We will’t handle sage grouse the identical means throughout their whole vary as a result of sagebrush ecosystems fluctuate so extensively. Whereas scientists are doing their half—together with making a nationwide plan that accounts for the variety of habitat throughout an enormous panorama—there’s a large want for extra engagement and help from the general public. Maybe greater than ever, we have to be sure that essential funding sources are directed at each analysis and administration. Even simply being knowledgeable is necessary—these birds actually depend on us.
Dave: That is going to sound foolish, however I’m an enormous Star Wars fan. The primary film I ever noticed as a child was The Empire Strikes Again. There’s that line the place they speak about how the whole lot is linked—we’re all symbiotic life types relying on one another. There’s some actual fact to that relating to ecosystems and life. I believe that’s one thing we should always all remember as we face ecosystem challenges and dangers sooner or later.
Learn Extra
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Wyoming Hunters, Stakeholders Combating Senate File 61 Regarding Pen-Raised Sage Grouse
The Risks of Cheatgrass and Canine
The Influence of Conifers in Sage Grouse Habitat
