Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Our spring member drive has ended, but it's not too late to give. You have the power to help fund the essential journalism that keeps us all informed. Help us close the gap on our spring fundraising goal! GIVE NOW

Utah And BLM Sage Grouse Plans 'Converge On The Science,' Says Researcher

Wikimedia Commons
Male Greater Sage Grouse lekking for a female

  

The State of Utah and the Bureau of Land Management recently revised plans to restore and manage populations of Greater Sage Grouse in the Intermountain West — and researchers say this time, they got it right.

“The beautiful thing about these plans is they have converged on science that is conducted in the state," said Terry Messmer, a professor of wildland resources at Utah State University. "The ideal situation is you do science and then that science helps guide the management and policy, and really that is what happened with the state of Utah plans and the BLM plans."

Messmer said previous plans managed sage grouse habitat using the same standards across the West. But as sage grouse habitat ranges from Northern Montana to Southern Utah and from Oregon to the Dakotas, state and federal agencies realized the necessity of region specific plans.

“Having guidelines that were written 30 years ago or 20 years ago based on an entirely different ecoregion does not make good sense for trying to impose that standard on Utah," Messmer said.

Sage grouse are chicken sized birds known for their elaborate mating routines, known as leks. Messmer usually studies these leks, but Utah’s weather made it difficult this year he said.

“This year has been kind of a weird year. We actually had birds lekking on snow," he said. "The time they spent on the leks was truncated. It was problematic for us from a research standpoint because we couldn’t get access to the leks to do the monitoring so we had a very short window.”

Messmer said despite the short lekking season however, the moisture is usually a good sign for the birds’ survival and well being.