Preserving Sage Grouse and Ranching with Conservation Easements

The conversion of native grassland and sagebrush to cropland is one of the greatest threats to wildlife that depend on this disappearing habitat such as greater sage-grouse. A new study projects that, if conversion rates continue as expected, sage grouse populations could drop another 5-7 percent in eastern Montana. But the study also offers a solution. Keep habitat intact by focusing voluntary conservation easements that retain ranching as a desired and compatible land use in areas that are most at risk to new cultivation.

The study, co-authored by scientists from The Nature Conservancy and University of Montana and published in the journal Biological Conservation, analyzed the relationship between expanding cropland and sage grouse leks, the essential mating sites for the birds. As leks disappear, so do the birds. Sage-grouse require large expanses of sagebrush grassland to thrive and, the study found, they are extremely sensitive to loss of what appears to be a small amount habitat. The conversion of 1 square mile of habitat to crops impacts an acreage 10 times that size when it occurs within a 2-mile radius of a lek. Ninety-six percent of active leks in the northern Great Plains have less than 15% of the surrounding landscape in cropland.

The researchers concluded that a $100 million investment in strategically located conservation easements could protect as much as 80% of the population in places with soils most at risk of conversion.

“These areas are highly productive for sage-grouse and livestock. There is a long history of ranchers conserving their rangeland with easements and more recently we are seeing easement payments used to enable the transfer of ranches between generations,” says Brian Martin, Grasslands Conservation Director for The Nature Conservancy in Montana, and co-author of the report.

The study geographically identified leks that are located in areas that have the highest risk of being converted and where conservation investments can have the largest return in keeping rangeland intact.

“This is the first step in dealing with the biggest threat to sage grouse in the northeastern part of their 11-state range,” says Joe Smith, University of Montana PhD student and co-author of the study.

Keeping productive rangeland intact has been a priority for the Nature Conservancy and the Natural Resources Conservation Service as part of the Sage Grouse Initiative. Both have been leaders in securing conservation easements as well as improvement to habitat.