- Next Meeting: Feb. 17, 2009, beginning at 6 pm at the Park Valley Elementary School. RSVP to Todd Black at 435-770-9302 or todd.black@usu.edu.
Local Working Group (LWG) meetings are held quarterly. Unless otherwise noted the BARM LWG meets during the following months:
February meeting—at this meeting participants:
1-review and report on implemented actions and strategies for the previous year
2-discuss and plan lek count/search needs
3-schedule, coordinate and plan summer events
May/June summer field tour TBA
August meeting—at this meeting participants:
1-plan, discuss, and coordinate various actions and strategies
2-state wide/range wide sage-grouse issues
3-report on any LWG sage-grouse research
November meeting—at this meeting participants:
1-review and revise the LWG plan
2-schedule, coordinate and plan
To be placed on mailing list and or for specific meeting location and times please contact: Todd A. Black, CBC EXT Specialist, cell 435-770-9302 or todd.black@usu.edu
Conservation Plan
BARM SAGR Conservation Plan
Reports
- 2006-7 Accomplishment Report; BARM section
- 2007 BARM Annual Report of USU Research Studies
- Thesis by Jan S. Knerr (2007) Greater Sage-Grouse Ecology in Western Box Elder County, Utah. Utah State University.
Minutes:
Sage-grouse Ecology and Response to Chemical and Mechanical Habitat Manipulation in northwestern Utah
By Eric Thacker, Ph.D. candidate, Jack H. Berryman Institute, Dept of Wildland Resources, Utah State University
Research conducted on Parker Mountain in southcentral Utah has previously demonstrated that greater sage-grouse broods reacted positively to management efforts to open dense sagebrush canopies. The small open patches created in the sagebrush stands provided greater forb diversity than untreated areas. In 2005 plans were set in to place to replicate the habitat improvements that were done on Parker Mountain in west Box Elder County, near Grouse Creek, Utah.
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The West Box Elder study area is a lower elevation (6500 feet) site when compared to Parker Mountain (>8000 feet). It is dominated by basin big sagebrush and has been impacted by cheat grass. The plots were identified in the fall of 2005 and the treatments were completed in the fall of 2006. There are 3 treatment types: Lawson aerator (mechanical treatment), tebuthiuron (herbicide treatment), and no treatment (control). There are 6 replications of each treatment type totaling 18 experimental plots, covering approximately 1800 acres. Pretreatment data to include herbaceous cover, shrub canopy cover, sagebrush density, herbaceous height, shrub height, sage-grouse pellet densities, and birddog flush counts were completed in 2006. We now have collected 2 years of data following implementation of the treatments. We are in the process of analyzing data, but there are some interesting preliminary results.
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Two of the leks in the area have moved into 2 of the Lawson aerator treatment plots. Some sage-grouse hens have nested in and around the treatments (<500 yards). Consequently we had 3 hens use some of the treatments in the summer of 2008. However, after our first few years of monitoring the treatments it became apparent that most of the sage-grouse were using the area during the leking and pre-laying season. We will continue to monitor the treatments in 2009 during the leking and pre-laying seasons to evaluate the effects of the treatments during this time.
Winter Diet Selection of Wintering Sage-Grouse.
Most of the available published literature suggests that greater sage-grouse clearly prefer Wyoming sagebrush during the winter. However, past observations made by members of the Box Elder Adaptive Resources Management Sage-grouse Local Working Group (BARM) suggested that black sage might be more important for birds that winter in the area. A study was initiated in cooperation with the Dr. Dale Gardner of the Poisonous Plant Research Lab in Logan, Utah. The objective of the study was to determine diet selection for wintering sage-grouse use by conducting chemical analysis of fecal pellets. Dr. Gardner developed a chemical assay technique to identify which species of sagebrush was contained in the sage-grouse fecal pellets. This work supported BARM observations that black sage was selected more frequently than Wyoming sagebrush as a forage source by wintering sage-grouse.
Biography
Eric Thacker is a PhD student in the Wildland Resources Department at Utah State University. Eric grew up in
Altamont, Utah. Eric received his B.S. in 2001 from
Utah State University in Range Science. He worked for the USDA Poisonous Plant Research lab for 6 years as Range Research Technician. While working for the Poisonous Plant Research Lab, he completed his M.S. at Utah State University. His M.S. research was ecology and management of broom snakeweed.
Eric's research interests include restoration and management of sagebrush steppe ecosystems, sage-grouse habitat use, upland game-bird harvest management, and monitoring techniques for habitat management and research involving grouse species.
