Voices from Sage-Grouse Country
Sagebrush Steppe Essential for Tribal Members
Westerners who live, recreate and make their living in Sagebrush Country want to save the greater sage-grouse, a bird that once numbered in the millions, and want to save the sagebrush steppe. The steppe, which is habitat for sage-grouse and more than 350 species, has been reduced in size and degraded by urbanization, wildfires, invasive species, energy development, overgrazing. There are fewer than a half million sage-grouse across 11 Western states.
Communities, ranchers, state and local agencies and nonprofits have teamed up to conserve sage-grouse and the habitat that’s also home to mule deer, elk and pronghorn. Their work and conservation plans the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management wrote with input from states and locals led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to decide that sage-grouse didn’t need to be placed on the endangered species list.
A year after that decision, it’s time to put the plans in action and rebuild the population of a signature Western species. Leading up to Sept. 22, the one-year anniversary of Fish and Wildlife’s announcement, the National Wildlife Federation is daily showcasing Westerners who care about the greater sage-grouse and its habitat. They want the political wrangling over the conservation plans to stop so we can get on with saving the bird and the herds.
These are some of the “Voices of the Sage.”
For Jason Baldes, the effort to conserve the greater sage-grouse and its habitat hits home — literally. Baldes, a member of the Eastern Shoshone tribe, grew up in sagebrush country on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
“The sage country is a big part of my life, growing up on the reservation there,” he says. “My father is a retired wildlife biologist. Growing up, I spent a great deal of time in the outdoors, hunting and fishing and gathering.”
The tribe uses sage plants in its ceremonies, dances and sweat lodges.
“The sage itself is central to our Shoshone people, our Shoshone culture,” says Baldes, a member of the National Wildlife Federation’s tribal lands advisory council.
He supports the ongoing work by public and private interests to save the greater sage-grouse and the decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not to place the sage-grouse on the Endangered Species List.
“I am supportive of protections and conservation measures that ensure survival and habitat availability, however adding the sage-grouse to the Endangered Species List may have undermined existing measures by multiple interests, and effective collaborative efforts in the future may be more important than simply listing the bird.
“I think that more cooperation between states and federal agencies and NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) is probably the best approach. That’s what’s been going on. That’s what’s led to the number of birds increasing recently,” Baldes adds. “So, I think there’s already a lot of good things happening,worthwhile cooperation between those entities. We’re seeing progress.”
Next up: A Wyoming sportswoman and businesswoman who moved to the West for the mountains, but fell in love with the sagebrush lands.
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