Invasive grass, fire a deadly one-two punch for sage grouse

Invasive cheatgrass is overtaking native plants, priming this semiarid desert for fiercer and more frequent wildfires. The big loser in this ecological coup occurring throughout the Great Basin: the greater sage grouse. It started here several years ago when a lightning-sparked fire ripped through 48,000 acres on this basalt lava plain, torching sagebrush and native bunch grasses. The blaze transformed habitat for the boisterous bird and let in cheatgrass, an opportunistic weed that thrives in disturbed landscapes. "This whole area was a sea of sagebrush," Jeremy Bisson, a biologist at the Bureau of Land Management, said on an April bus ride past the area's ancient lava domes and grazing sheep. After the smoke cleared, BLM replanted native sagebrush, hoping to restore the area's ecology and provide habitat for species like grouse. But three years later, just as the seedlings were establishing themselves, a spark, possibly from a welder, set off another fire in the same area that burned 32,000 acres. BLM's restoration literally went up in smoke. The story is playing out across the Great Basin as sage-steppe ecosystems are transformed by more frequent and severe wildfires and invasive plants like cheatgrass and medusahead. It has major ramifications for the sage grouse, which the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2010 declared at risk of extinction, as well as for mule deer, sage sparrows, pygmy rabbits and spotted frogs that share the grouse's habitat...more