Amazing photos: Sage rhythms and sage-grouse in the new west
Editor’s Note: Dave Showalter is a Colorado-based conservation photographer and author, and a Senior Fellow in the International League of Conservation Photographers. His conservation work is focused on the American west, and he has published two books — Sage Spirit: The American West at a Crossroads, published by Braided River (2015); and the award-winning Prairie Thunder, published by Skyline Press (2007). In this photo essay, Dave explores the sagebrush ecosystem of the American west through the lens of the iconic sage-grouse.
You can view more of Dave Showalter’s work at http://www.daveshowalter.com.
By Dave Showalter
Every morning in spring, sage-grouse arrive on their leks, the same open patches they’ve used as mating grounds for millennia, to perform their remarkable courtship display.
No matter the weather or politics in Washington, sage-grouse will arrive on these leks — strutting, fighting, chasing, and dancing to continue the species.
A face of our enduring wild, the sage-grouse have evolved on this landscape for 25 million years. Greater and Gunnison sage-grouse are hard-wired to spend their entire life in the basins and valleys of the intermountain west where sagebrush dominates. Sagebrush habitat is a mostly treeless landscape populated with bunchgrasses, wildflowers and other prairie plants native to the American west.
A noble western bird with a funky courtship dance, the sage-grouse can handle anything Mother Nature throws at them, from extreme drought to intense cold. But habitat loss is their Kryptonite and could cause this resilient creature to disappear.
An indicator species under threat
When the west was settled, about 16 million sage-grouse lived in the sagebrush ecosystem. Today, due to wildfire, invasive species, and industrial development, the habitat has been reduced and fragmented so much that populations no longer total even 500,000.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers the sage-grouse an “indicator species,” meaning they serve as the key barometer for the health of an entire ecosystem of species. This includes some 350 species, including golden eagle, elk, pronghorn, and mule deer — 351 species, if you count all the humans who contribute to and benefit from a $887 billion-and-growing outdoor recreation industry.
Plans to save endangered habitat at risk
With the sage-grouse threatened by habitat loss, westerners spent years collaborating on a solution that would safeguard sagebrush habitat while allowing public lands to stay open for energy development, ranching, recreation, and other uses.
In 2015, the Interior Department announced landscape conservation plans to protect sagebrush habitat across 10 western states. This reduced threats to 90 percent of the sage-grouse’s most important habitat, precluding the need to list it as an endangered species.
These plans are collectively one of the largest conservation efforts ever undertaken in the U.S., involving years of collaboration and coordination among Republican and Democratic governors, federal and state agencies, biologists, regional conservationists, ranchers, and recreationists.
But that could all change, as new Interior Department leadership considers dismantling this landmark agreement.
It was never about a bird — it’s about us
The debate over who gets to drill, graze, bike, fish, and hunt on sagebrush habitat was never about the sage-grouse — a bird that’s either in the way, or a symbol of all that’s wild in the west, depending on one’s perspective.
The story of the sage-grouse is, and always has been, about us.
Right now, we have the opportunity of a lifetime to pass on a proud natural inheritance to future generations. Let’s leave these plans in place that protect an incredible, American ecosystem.
