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Greater sage grouse are an icon of western rangelands. You may have seen or heard their
elaborate courting display. The males fluff themselves up, inflate their air sacs, make
a loud rhythmic huffing sound and do some elaborate dancing. You can hear their huffing
up to a mile away. It's one of nature's best shows.
Greater sage grouse depend on sagebrush for food and cover. In the winter, 100% of a sage
grouses diet is sagebrush. The formula is simple: When sagebrush habitat declines, so
do the populations of greater sage grouse. And that's exactly what has been happening
over the last 40 years. At one time, the greater sage-grouse population numbered in the millions.
Today, that number has shrunk to somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000.
Wildfire hasn't been a friend to the greater sage-grouse. In fact, in the Great Basin,
fire has been the biggest threat to sagebrush habitat -- and in turn, to the bird itself.
The Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, has about 57 million acres of greater sage-grouse
habitat under its care. Much of that area is prone to wildfire. Wildfire in the Great
Basin is even more of a problem because of cheat grass.
Cheat grass is an invasive weed from Eurasia that took hold in the Great Basin more than
100 years ago. It's an opportunistic plant that thrives in disturbed soil and it's a
prolific seeder ....And it burns like paper. You can see the problem. The more fire, the
more cheatgrass. The more cheatgrass, the more fire. And along the way, sagebrush habitat
disappears, and so do greater sage grouse. BLM is taking steps to battle cheat grass
and wildfire in the Great Basin. Fire suppression priorities are life, property
and resources, in that order. One thing we're doing in Idaho is creating strips of vegetation
in strategic areas to modify fire behavior. When a wildfire hits these strips, momentum
slows and flame lengths decrease, allowing firefighters more time to suppress it. Using
these strips in the wildland urban interface, fewer firefighting resources need to be allocated
and can be made available for other new starts. Creating fuel breaks is just one way BLM is
conserving habitat in fire-prone areas. In addition, the BLM is managing for healthy
plant communities that can compete with cheat grass. The desired result is sagebrush habitat
protection. This helps ensure that these colorful and entertaining symbols of western rangelands
will be able to strut their stuff for decades to come.