The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has committed $4 million to increase capacity to implement the highly successful Sage-grouse Initiative (SGI) launched last year, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. These federal funds will be leveraged with $2.25 million from state fish and wildlife agencies, non-novernmental organizations (NGOs), corporations, Conservation Districts, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS), to hire 17 new biologists and range conservationists, strategically located in key sagebrush-steppe landscapes where human capital is the only thing limiting SGI implementation. A new Strategic Watershed Action Team (SWAT), which will be coordinated by the Intermountain West Joint Venture (IWJV), will make sure the $53 million NRCS allocated to the SGI for fiscal year 2011 is "targeting the best of the best sage-grouse habitat in the West," according to Dave White, NRCS Chief. In addition, these funds will support creating new decision support tools and on-going outcome-based research to manage SGI implementation adaptively and improve delivery.

Sagebrush-steppe is one of the most important and least appreciated wildlife habitats in North America. This habitat is characterized by a sagebrush canopy and an understory of native grasses and forbs. It is critical to some of the most important and at-risk wildlife species in the Intermountain West, including the iconic sage-grouse. Sagebrush once occurred on more than 150 million acres, stretching from the Canadian Rockies to the Southwest.

Today, sagebrush habitat is rapidly being lost, degraded or fragmented by residential and commercial subdivisions, tillage agriculture, energy development, conifer encroachment and catastrophic wildfire. The impacts on sagebrush habitat are great enough that the FWS determined the sage-grouse is warranted for listing as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Listing sage-grouse could have major impacts on land use, lifestyles and the economy of the American West.

To reverse the decline of sagebrush habitat and reduce the need to list sage-grouse, the NRCS launched the SGI ? a bold effort including many partners to achieve spatially targeted, landscape-scale sage-grouse habitat conservation, using Farm Bill conservation programs?Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP). In keeping with NRCS's original mission, the SGI aims to conserve sage-grouse populations through support of sustainable ranching.

In just one year, SGI has quickly become one of the largest conservation success stories in the West. Capitalizing on the strong link between sustainable ranching and healthy sage-grouse populations, NRCS approved 223 contracts last year, totaling more than $18.5 million in Farm Bill assistance (EQIP and WHIP) to remove threats to sage-grouse and improve working ranches. Contracts were signed to remove encroaching conifers from 40,000 acres to improve livestock forage availability and eliminate tall structures that sage-grouse avoid in otherwise suitable habitat. By year's end, SGI will have implemented improved grazing systems on 2,600 square miles of large and intact sagebrush grasslands, an area equivalent to 2,200 football fields conserved every day. Grazing systems that increase ranch profitability also increase hiding cover for nesting sage-grouse, a management action expected to enhance nest success by 8 to 10 percent.

SGI is driven by the commitment that lasting conservation is achieved through partnerships. Through the SWAT, SGI recently aligned with the IWJV?1 of 18 U.S. Habitat Joint Ventures?to achieve sage-grouse conservation through partnerships with federal and state agencies, NGOs and for-profit corporations. This new alliance between SGI and IWJV will strengthen SGI delivery capacity.

For additional information on the Sage-grouse Initiative, contact Tim Griffiths, National SGI Coordinator, NRCS, Bozeman, MT, 406-600-3908, or Dave Naugle, SGI science advisor, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 406-243-5364. (cs)