NRCS Sage-grouse Initiative. Utah Taxonomy

NRCS Sage-grouse Initiative

Scope note

The Sage Grouse Initiative (SGI) is a partnership of ranchers, agencies, universities, non-profit groups, and businesses that embrace a common vision: wildlife conservation through sustainable ranching. Launched by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in 2010, SGI applies the power of the Farm Bill to fund and certify voluntary conservation projects in sage grouse strongholds across 11 western states. SGI joins an unprecedented conservation effort at local, state, and national levels to proactively conserve the species and prevent the need for listing the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act, a decision slated for 2015. Once numbering some 16 million before settlement, sage grouse have dwindled to as few as 200,000 birds inhabiting half their historic range. However, with the right conservation in the right places, we can bring back sage grouse, while meeting our nation's food and energy needs.

The Sage-Grouse Initiative is designed to sustain working ranches and conserve sage-grouse populations by helping maintain livestock grazing as the prevailing land use. Several large-scale threats facing sage-grouse are identical to factors impacting the sustainability and productivity of grazing lands throughout the West. The Sage-Grouse Initiative aims to remove or reduce fragmentation threats common to sustainable ranching and sage-grouse conservation. For the most part, the same factors that negatively affect sage-grouse also negatively affect the health, productivity, and sustainability of native grazing lands. Therefore, improvements to benefit sage-grouse also benefit grazing lands and the ranches that depend on them.

Utah landowners within several western slope counties are encouraged to visit with their local NRCS field office and inquire about developing a conservation plan that when implemented will help reduce the threats to the Sage Grouse. Financial assistance for the initiative is provided through the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Therefore, applicants and their land must meet the eligibility requirements for WHIP or EQIP (EQIP Eligibility). Additionally, the land must be in historic or currently occupied sage-grouse habitat according to the Sage-Grouse in Utah map.

Historical note

The USDA-NRCS/USU Sage-grouse Restoration Project (SGRP) led by Terry Messmer at Utah State University was a cooperative effort involving private landowners, public and private conservation agencies and organizations, and universities in a process to integrate, evaluate, and document the effects of 2002 Farm Bill conservation practices in restoring sagebrush-steppe ecosystems to benefit sage-grouse and other sagebrush obligates. It has been replaced by the NRCS Sage-Grouse Initiative also known as the NCRS Restoration Initiative.

Partners had included U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS); Utah State University (USU); USU, College of Natural Resources; USU Extension Services; Jack H. Berryman Institute; Western Governors' Association; WAFWA, Western States Sage and Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse Technical Committee; North American Grouse Partnership; and Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.

The purpose of SGRP was the identification, integration, evaluation, and documentation of effects of 2002 Farm Bill conservation technologies and strategies on sage-grouse and other sagebrush-steppe obligates. This information has been used to assist NRCS, SCDs, state wildlife agency field staff, and private landowners in the planning and implementation of habitat projects and practices on private lands to benefit sage-grouse and other sagebrush-steppe obligate species. The projects contributed to range-wide sage-grouse conservation efforts. This project provided current information on the role of existing conservation practices and technologies relative to conserving sage-grouse and other sagebrush obligate species. The information gained from the multi-state experiments also assisted local sage-grouse working groups in complying with the conservation plan reporting requirements set forth in the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Policy for Evaluation of Conservation Efforts (PECE) When Making Listing Decisions. Additionally, the SGRP will result in the development of a web-based library that will provide farmers and ranchers with visual information and real-time data regarding the role of NRCS conservation practices in increasing their productivity and natural resource conservation. This information will allow them to optimize the benefits of conservation planning. Lastly, the SGRP identified private lands conservation planning needs to a much wider research audience. This ultimately will increase the awareness and involvement of the best researchers in the field to address field-level technology needs.