Hundreds of thousands of acres of intact sagebrush lands, and the grouse that depend upon them, are threatened by the invasion of juniper and other conifers into sagebrush rangelands. A new study in eastern Oregon found no active leks where conifers covered more than 4% of the land area. As important, active leks were nonexistent not only where trees were well established, but even in early stages of encroachment where many small trees were scattered across the landscape. This project evaluates conifer canopy cover on a state-by-state basis in the Western US, with the goal if identifying areas that can be targeted for treatment to stem the degradation of sage grouse habitat. The technology employed, Spatial Wavelet...
