The Bureau of Land Management has released final greater sage-grouse habitat plans for eight states—Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nevada, California, Utah, and Wyoming—updating management standards on federal lands. The plans remove height benchmarks for perennial grasses and make other changes intended to provide additional flexibility for land use while continuing to protect key habitat across approximately 65 million acres of sagebrush lands that support more than 350 wildlife species.

In a news release announcing the change in plans, Acting Bureau of Land Management Director Bill Groffy said: “We are strengthening American energy security while ensuring the sage-grouse continues to thrive. Healthy sagebrush country powers our communities, sustains wildlife and supports the economies that make the West strong.” 

The plans also provide management direction for livestock grazing to meet or make progress toward meeting the Land Health Standard, which BLM says supports healthy sagebrush systems and suitable greater sage-grouse habitat.

The revisions update habitat management areas used to determine protections for the species. Separate sage-grouse plans for Colorado and Oregon were completed earlier this year.

According to the plans, greater sage-grouse experienced range-wide population declines of nearly 40% from 2002 to 2021, with more than 87% of areas seeing declining habitat during that period, though some areas have maintained stable or increasing populations. Sagebrush availability declined by approximately 1.9 million acres, or 3%, between 2012 and 2018 across all land types, with nearly 60% of those losses—about 1.1 million acres—occurring on BLM-administered lands.