Transcript

This is the Connection. A dirty free hub podcast connecting gravel cyclists to where they ride through short stories about culture, history, people, places in lands.

Dirty Freehub

My name is Kira Corbett, and today on the podcast we have Skyler Bold, the Sage Grouse Conservation Coordinator for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, where we discuss about what makes the sage grouse such an interesting bird. Okay. Well, thanks so much for joining us today.

Skyler Vold – ODFW

Yeah, thank you. I, I always love talking about sage grouse. So happy to join. I am excited.

Dirty Freehub

Let’s kick it off with what is the greater sage grouse, and why is it so iconic in the west?

Skyler Vold – ODFW

It’s a great question. The greater sage grouse, you know, like you mentioned, covers many of the Western states and it’s a very iconic bird because it’s so easily seen when it’s out there displaying on its is a location that the males go to display for the females every spring. They go back to the same locations, so you can go to these L locations. You can watch the males display, and that’s how ODFW gets a good index of how the population is doing. So we know where a lot of these black locations are in southeastern Oregon, as many of the Western state agencies know.

And you go to that location, you count the number of males that are displaying, and if you go back year after year, you can get a good index of the population and determine how the birds are doing in the area. It’s pretty cool. And for this reason, we have a really long-term data set because you know, back to as early as 19 40, 19 50 biologists have been counting these sage gross on the lex.

We know how well the populations are doing really back 50, 60, 70 years. In some cases. The species is iconic to the west. Really because of how flashy they are. I think like everybody loves just that iconic sage grouse displaying at sunrise. It’s tough to be like when you’re out there on a lake survey in the desert, sage brush glistening in the morning, sunrise, like it’s 15 degrees.

Those wild flowers, the butter cups have some frost on them, like those birds are displaying. You can sometimes hear ’em from half a mile away before you see them. So it’s. It’s a pretty special experience. Before this podcast, before I was researching this topic, I was looking up images of this bird.

Dirty Freehub

They’re really, really unique. Could you help paint us a picture of what they look like?

Skyler Vold – ODFW

Yeah. So when the males are displaying, they are really neat. They’re really flashy. They have these big white feathers on the front of their chest and up around their neck. Um, they have these yellow eyebrows and then their fan is all displayed.

It’s all fanned out. It’s bigger than a chicken, but smaller than a Turkey. And when they’re out there displaying, you can see them from sometimes half a mile or more away. But when they’re not displaying, and the females always are like this, they look like rocks out in the sagebrush. Like you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a chicken size rug and.

A male sage grouse that’s just crouched down or a female sage gross. Generally, in any case, unless you’re like looking really closely. So they’re either really easy to see the males in the spring displaying or they’re really, really tough to identify, uh, which is like any other time of the year really.

Dirty Freehub

And you mentioned a little bit, but what about their habitat? Where do they usually live?

Skyler Vold – ODFW

So in Oregon, they live anywhere out in the sagebrush, basically starting like. Just east of Bend around Milliken, that’s like the western extent of their range. But they go all the way over to the Idaho border, up to Baker City, down to the southeastern corner of Oregon, like east of McDermott.

And then from there they go over like near Lakeview. So it’s a large area of the state. And what they require is these like vast. Expanses of Sagebrush, the Sagebrush sea, they don’t really like trees, so they just like seeing a lot of sagebrush, and that’s where they live. The females will stick their nests under a sagebrush plant, and then in the winter, 99% of their diet is sagebrush.

So they’re what, what we call a sagebrush obligate species. They require this habitat for their entire life history. Even just that alone is so unique because sagebrush just doesn’t look like the most pleasant thing to be eating. Oh, yeah. It’s actually toxic to many species. Sage bro are one of the only species that can eat it along with like pygmy rabbits, pronghorn, and a few other species, but it is like a mildly toxic plant.

So it is pretty cool that they can. Selectively eat this plant in the winter and actually gain weight like their highest survival rates are in the winter, which is wild. Thinking about like southeastern Oregon in the winter, aside from this past winter, like generally we have feet of snow. It’s super cold, it’s windy, like it’s not a great place to just be hanging out in the sagebrush, but these birds thrive out there, which is, it’s pretty neat.

That’s absolutely wild. They’re quite amazing in that way. Yeah. And are there any threats that are putting the sage grass at risk? And if so, what are some of those threats? Yeah, there are, like I mentioned, they require sagebrush for their entire existence. So I’d say like the major threat to the species in Oregon is.

Large scale wildfire. And when you’re talking about like these wildfires that rip through Southeastern Oregon, a hundred, 200, 300,000 acres in one event, that’s a lot of sage brush that’s burnt up, and that’s a lot less carrying capacity to support sage grouse on the landscape. Following these wildfires, we often have invasive annual grasses that come in and they take hold and it kind of creates this positive feedback loop where you have cheat grass and Medusa head that take hold after a wildfire, but then they perpetuate the wildfire cycle because they like come into these areas earlier in the spring.

Germinate earlier, and then they sse earlier and then they like dry up and, and create more wildfires. So it’s not a good cycle to be in, but it’s kind of. A lot of spots in southeastern Oregon are getting these invasive grasses. It’s something that we’re really concerned about. So like wildfire invasive annual grasses.

And then another threat currently would be just the expansion of Western juniper. Like historically, we had fire regimes that kind. Set the Western Juniper back to really just those elevations that it made sense for the juniper to be in, but it’s kind of expanding out into the otherwise intact sage brush.

And like I mentioned, sage brush don’t like trees, so wildfire invasive annual grasses and the expansion of juniper trees or like the three major threads to the species range wide.

Dirty Freehub

Is there anything that we can do to help with them or does protecting the sage grouse help with other wildlife and landscapes?

Skyler Vold – ODWF

Yeah, like I mentioned, they’re a sagebrush obligate species, and we often refer to them as an umbrella species. So because we’ve been tracking their populations for so long, we know how they’re doing. But for a lot of these other sagebrush oates, like the ney rabbits and many of the sagebrush obligate songbirds, many of the like.

The lizards are reptiles that live in the sagebrush. We don’t really know how well those species are doing. So sage grow can act as a good indicator for the health of the ecosystem. If sage grows, populations are doing well in a specific area, we know that the sagebrush is probably healthy and the other species are likely doing well.

If sage, gross populations aren’t doing so well in an area. You know, we, we can say that, okay, the habitat is probably impaired and the other species that live there probably aren’t doing so well either. So they are a really good indicator in protecting sage gross, and their habitats will definitely help protect other species as well.

Dirty Freehub

Thanks for sharing that. Is there anything else that we didn’t talk about that you would like to add?

Skyler Vold – ODFW

I mean, I could talk about Sage gross all day, but I know that this is only like a 10 or 15 minute podcast, so that’s up to you. I maybe a little fun fact. Have you, um, have you encountered some yourself and if so, I mean you were describing a beautiful scene with them at some point.

Yeah, absolutely. So in my position with ODFW, I kind of coordinate all the let counts. So in the spring, biologists from ODFW, from the Bureau of Land Management, from US Fish and Wildlife Service, we all coordinate and collaborate to go to these L locations that we know about across the landscape and survey them.

So. By getting these surveys, we can tell at even pretty fine scales how the populations are doing. And in addition to like coordinating all of that, I’m also able to go out and do some of the surveys myself, which is really the reason that I still have this job because I just love getting out there in the spring.

I love counting the birds. It’s. The very early mornings, um, you’re talking about like getting up at two 30 or 3:00 AM to travel hours to get to these locations because you have to be there right at sunrise. The sage gross only display for about 90 minutes after sunrise is when they’re done. So you have to get there early, get the count, and then you can continue on with your day.

But yeah, being out there at sunrise and counting the birds is, is really special. Well, thanks for sharing. I so appreciate it. Yeah, of course. Dirty Free Hub is a nonprofit organization fueled by your generous contributions. Find [email protected].