MISSION STATEMENT WildEarth Guardians protects and restores the wildlife, wild places and wild rivers of the American West. Inquiries about this report and WildEarth Guardians' work can be made directly to: Mark Salvo, WildEarth Guardians 503-757-4221,
[email protected] Cartography and analyses: Kurt Menke, Bird's Eye View GIS Front cover photo: James Ownby © WildEarth Guardians All rights reserved. No part of this report may be used in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, WILDEARTH GUARDIANS, except in the case of brief quotations. Inquires should be addressed to: 312 Montezuma Avenue, Santa Fe, NM 87501 The Shrinking Sagebrush Sea Executive Summary In the sagebrush lands of the West… the natural landscape is eloquent of the interplay of forces that have created it. It is spread before us like the pages of an open book in which we can read why the land is what it is and why we should preserve its integrity. But the pages lie unread. Rachel Carson ● Silent Spring (1962) Despite its size, the Sagebrush Sea (scientifically known as “sagebrush steppe”) is one of the most endangered landscapes in North America. The Sagebrush Sea has been reduced in area by as much as 50 percent since European settlement. Livestock grazing, natural gas and oil development, agricultural conversion, roads, fences, powerlines and pipelines, off-road vehicle use, urban sprawl, mining, unnatural fire, and invasive weeds are fragmenting or degrading much of what remains. Greater sage-grouse are a sagebrush obligate species whose range has been significantly reduced with the loss of sagebrush steppe.