Rangeland Ecology & Management

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PRE- AND POST-FIRE GREATER SAGE-GROUSE LEK COUNTS AND MOVEMENT
Author
Simonds, Gregg E.
Sant, Eric D.
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2015
Body

Populations of Greater Sage-grouse are dependent upon live sagebrush for their production throughout the year and across their entire range. In northern Nevada the greatest threat to sagebrush and Sage-grouse is wildfire. These conflagrations convert large landscape from sagebrush to expansive monocultures of annual and/or perennial grasslands. Sagebrush recovery can take from decades to more than a century. This is an alarming fact for a candidate species that is threatened or endangered and is a sagebrush obligate. Squaw Valley Ranch is a 368,000-acre ranch north of Battle Mountain Nevada. Eighty six percent of the sagebrush habitat of this ranch has burned at least once since 1998 and over 30% has burned twice. Prior to 2003 grazing practices were continuous and season-long. After 2003, grazing management has focused on matching rest periods with current range conditions. All the known leks on the ranch have been counted annually since 2002. These counts indicate that male attendance has generally increased over time but fall dramatically after every large fire. Additionally, radio telemetry of sage grouse has shown that they avoid areas on the ranch in which the sagebrush has been lost. 

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Conference Name
SRM Sacramento, CA