Prisoners grow thousands of sagebrush plants for vulnerable grouse

Participants in a four-year-old program where inmates across the West cultivate sagebrush plants describe their prison yard gardening project as therapeutic, a sanctuary, good for their soul. They’re tending to seedlings that will eventually be the main winter sustenance for the sage grouse, form cover for nests and help restore some of the vulnerable bird’s fast-shrinking habitat, which has been ravaged by wildfires, mining and invasive cheatgrass. Federal officials say the bird’s range has declined by 56 percent from historical levels, and the number of birds is down an estimated 30 percent since 1985. The plants that the inmates cultivate are usually sent to the Bureau of Land Management offices in Elko, Winnemucca and Susanville, CA, where they are planted in clusters usually after wildfires have destroyed existing foliage. Compared with raw seed, which has a 5 percent chance of growing to maturity, months-old “plugs” of sagebrush have a far better chance of survival because they have a more-developed root structure....more