Greater Sage-Grouse Habitat Conservation Strategies

Effective conservation of the Greater Sage-Grouse encompasses a suite of landscape-scale and local interventions designed to maintain and restore structurally diverse sagebrush communities. Core approaches include targeted suppression of wildfires and rapid post-fire restoration to re-establish native shrubs that support nesting and brood-rearing. Management of conifer encroachment through strategic tree removal preserves open shrubland essential for forage and cover. Adjustments to grazing infrastructure—such as fence modifications to reduce predation risk—and adaptive livestock grazing regimes help maintain insect prey availability for chicks. Rangewide habitat modelling and spatially explicit planning account for regional variation in habitat selection, enabling prioritisation of high-value areas around breeding display grounds or leks. Recognition of the sage-grouse as an umbrella species guides broader shrubland restoration, while ensuring measures consider potential effects on non-target fauna. Emerging tools, including remote sensing and telemetry, inform dynamic monitoring and refine conservation actions to bolster population resilience across the species’ western North American range.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent long-term telemetry analysis revealed that large wildfire events produce immediate and profound declines in key demographic rates of Greater Sage-Grouse. A paired before-after control-impact study spanning twelve years documented a 40 % drop in adult survival and a 79 % reduction in nest survival within burned areas. The work emphasises the need for proactive fire suppression, coupled with rapid restoration of diverse sagebrush assemblages, to mitigate the cascading impacts of altered fire regimes. Insights from this study underpin landscape-scale strategies that prioritise prevention and early rehabilitation to safeguard both survival and reproductive success.

Greater Sage-Grouse Habitat Conservation Strategies publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in greater sage-grouse habitat conservation strategies across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Lek: Communal breeding display ground where males gather to perform courtship displays.

Telemetry: Remote tracking of individual birds via transmitters to record movement, survival and habitat use.

Umbrella species: Species whose conservation is assumed to benefit co-occurring taxa sharing the same habitat.

Conifer encroachment: Invasion of pine or juniper trees into sagebrush landscapes, altering structural and ecological functions.

References

1. Shifts in sage-grouse arthropod food sources across grazing and environmental gradients in upland meadow communities. Journal of Environmental Management (2023).
2. Large-scale fence modifications increase nest survival in sage-grouse. Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment (2025).
3. Impacts of umbrella species management on non‐target species. Journal of Applied Ecology (2024).
4. Wildfire immediately reduces nest and adult survival of greater sage-grouse. Scientific Reports (2023).
5. Importance of regional variation in conservation planning: a rangewide example of the Greater Sage‐Grouse. Ecosphere (2016).
6. Single species conservation as an umbrella for management of landscape threats. PLOS ONE (2019).