USGS Study Reports a Troubling Decline of Greater Sage-Grouse Populations

A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found greater sage-grouse populations have been in a steep decline. Over the last sixty years, USGS saw an 80% decline with 40% of this decline taking place since 2002. With this dramatic decline, the greater sage-grouse is at risk of extinction.

Greater sage-grouse populations are a signifier of the overall health of the sagebrush ecosystems of California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. However, Recent years have shown an increased population decline in western portions of the greater sage-grouse range, highlighted in the Great Basin. Eastern areas have seen a less dramatic decline and Western Wyoming stood out as the only region with stable populations. However, the population as a whole is now less than a quarter of its numbers half a century ago.

Reasons for population declines include:

• The oil and gas industry’s effect on sage-grouse habitat

• Farmland expansion

• Wildfires

There are now around 200,000 sage-grouse in the American West where there once were millions. Activists and policy-makers are working to list the greater sage-grouse as endangered which would protect their habitat from drilling, mining and grazing.

Resources:

Environmental Action Team. (July 19, 2021). This Bird is Disappearing from the West. Environmental Action.

Laslo, Matt. (August 24, 2018). Some Western Lawmakers Worry Trump Administration Sage Grouse Plan Could Backfire. Wyoming Public Media.

USGS. (March 30, 2021). New Research Highlights Decline of Greater Sage-Grouse in the American West, Provides Roadmap to Aid Conservation.