FIRE EFFECTS AND USE
WILDLIFE SPECIES: Centrocercus urophasianus | Sage Grouse 



DIRECT FIRE EFFECTS ON ANIMALS : 
Fire-related mortality of sage grouse has not been documented in the
literature.


HABITAT RELATED FIRE EFFECTS : 
Depending on prefire habitat quality and the type of fire, fire can be
beneficial or harmful to sage grouse.  Sage grouse use sagebrush of
different age classes and stand structures as lekking, nesting,
brooding, and wintering grounds.  Neither expansive dense sagebrush nor
expansive open areas constitute optimal sage grouse habitat:  Klebenow
[31] reported that in three summers of sampling, no sage grouse were
observed in large acreage, dense sagebrush in southern Idaho.  

Fire that creates a mosaic of sagebrush of different ages and structures
would benefit sage grouse [31].  Newly burned areas interspersed with
patches of sagebrush offer increased forb production while providing
nesting and brooding cover [7,24,33,36].  The younger age classes of
sagebrush that establish after fire offer more nutritious and palatable
browse than do old sagebrush stands [19].  Additionally, burns provide
new lekking sites:  Sage grouse have established leks on burns in areas
where open cover was lacking before fire.  Sage grouse show lek
fidelity, however, and may not use burns as lekking grounds if there is
a sufficient number of old leks [5].

Fire always removes a certain amount of sage grouse food and cover.
Griner [22] noted that burning resulted in a decline in sage grouse in
Utah.  If the burn is small in relationship to surrounding area, it will
probably enhance sage grouse habitat.  Fire that destroys large tracts
of sagebrush, or destroys key winter habitat, can be harmful [30,31].
However, large-acreage fires do not always harm sage grouse.  A
17,250-acre (6,900-ha) wildfire in mountain big sagebrush in southern
Idaho burned in a mosaic pattern, leaving many unburned islands.  The
wildfire occurred at an ebb in the sage grouse population, so nesting
sites were not limiting in the first postfire nesting season.  Overall
effect of the wildfire on the sage grouse population was apparently
neutral:  The sage grouse population increased after the fire, but this
was part of a regional trend of sage grouse increase following several
years of low reproduction.  Martin [36] suggested that had nesting
habitat been limiting, the large-acreage fire probably would have
adversely affected the sage grouse population.


FIRE USE : 
A diversity of sagebrush habitat, in terms of sage grouse food and
cover, should be the management objective.  Klebenow [31] recommends
burning sagebrush on a rotational basis to create sage grouse habitat.
Different patches should be burned each year or every few years, with as
long as 20 years between burning each patch.  Benson and others [5]
recommend burning in patches of less than 100 acres in size.  Because
livestock may concentrate in small burns, livestock should be excluded
from the burns for 2 to 3 years after fire to optimize revegetation.

Lek/nesting grounds - Fire that occurs outside the mating season will
probably not affect postfire sage grouse use of the grounds for mating.
Fall wildfires on sage grouse leks in southern Idaho had no effect on
sage grouse use of the leks the next breeding season [36].  Areas
immediately surrounding leks, however, are heavily used as nesting
grounds, and fire in areas surrounding leks may have a negative impact
on consequent use of the surrounding areas by hens.  Wallstad and Pyrah
[56] recommend that sagebrush within 1.9 miles (3.2 km) of a lek not be
burned in order to protect nesting habitat.  This recommendation may be
most applicable to areas where nesting habitat is limited, however.
Gates and Eng [19] noted that on their southern Idaho study site, which
was surrounded by 120 square miles (300 sq km) of Wyoming big sagebrush,
nesting habitat was plentiful.  While their summer-fall prescribed fires
did burn near several established leks, the fires also created an open
area that sage grouse used as a lekking ground the next spring.  The
fire treatment apparently did not deter hens from using grounds adjacent
to the burns for nesting and brooding.  Most radio-collared sage grouse
hens nested within 3 miles (5 km) of the lek on which they were captured
the year before fire treatment.  The summer of postfire year 1, 5 of 11
collared hens moved their brood into agricultural areas adjacent to the
burn.  Broods apparently made little use of the burns as foraging areas.

Schlatterer [46] and Dalke and others [13] noted that following
unintentional fire, sage grouse used small burned openings as leks.  To
create openings in homogeneous sagebrush, Klebenow [31] recommended
small fires, 1 to 10 acres (0.4-4 ha) in size.

Spring fire is not recommended on sage grouse nesting grounds [2,33].
Fire on the nesting grounds is not recommended in any season if nesting
habitat is limited [2].

Brooding:  Fall spot fires burning several patches of a few acres can
result in suitable brood rearing areas by increasing forb availability.
Spot burns along edges of meadows where sagebrush is encroaching may
also enchance brood rearing areas.  Enough sagebrush-meadow ecotone must
be left, however, to provide cover [2].

Martin [36] noted that in southern Idaho, broods neither preferred nor
avoided large burned areas (P<0.05).

Winter:  Klebenow [31] does not recommend burning in winter habitat.
Autenreith and others [2] recommend that fire in winter use areas be
applied cautiously:  What may appear as an excess of sagebrush in summer
may provide only mimimal amounts of sagebrush in winter.  They recommend
that prior to burning, winter sage grouse distribution during peak snow
conditions should be assessed so that key wintering grounds are not
depleted by fire.

Examples of Fire Use:  Prescribed and wildfires in north-central
Colorado had no significant effect (P>0.10) on sage grouse populations.
The prescribed Deer Creek Fire was conducted in October 1987 and was 180
feet (60 m) east of a lek.  It burned only 95 acres (38 ha) due to poor
ignition conditions.  Two wildfires occurred in the study area in August
1987.  The Perdiz Wildfire burned 300 acres (120 ha), consuming 99
percent of sagebrush cover.  The Thornburg Well Wildfire burned 3,000
acres (1,200 ha), removed "most" shrub cover, and burned within 2 miles
(0.8 km) of a lek.  Pre- and postfire counts of male sage grouse were as
follows [5]:

High counts of male sage grouse on leks, 1973-1990
--------------------------------------------------
Year     Deer Creek      Perdiz     Thornburg Well
       Prescribed Fire  Wildfire       Wildfire
--------------------------------------------------
1973         37
1974         11
1975         27   
1976         36
1977         31                          36(b)  
1978         41                          32
1979         43           16(b)          35
1980         28            8             28
1981         52            3             20
1982         66           27              8(c)
1983         47           21              8(c)
1984         14            8             NC
1985         45           10              5(c)
1986         21            6             15(c)
1987         23           16             17(c)
1988         18(a)        17(a)          20(a)
1989         13            8             16
1990         21           21             16
----------------------------------------------------
(a) First postfire count
(b) Year of initial location
(c) No systematic counts
NC = no count

The authors noted that the relationship between sage grouse population
size and habitat alteration by the Colorado fires was difficult to
assess [5].  Sage grouse poulation size may be cyclic [43]; winter
severity is also suspected to affect population size [57].  Habitat
alterations other than fire may have played a factor in postfire sage
grouse population size.  In this case, decreased mining activity on the
Perdiz site in 1989 to 1990 may at least partially explain sage grouse
population increase at that time [5].

Sage grouse summer foraging in a meadow on the Inyo National Forest,
California, increased following prescribed fire.  The fire was conducted
in the fall of 1981 to remove Wyoming big sagebrush from the meadow and
to increase the component of early seral grasses and forbs.  Snowpack
was 220 percent above normal in the first postfire winter, and cover of
early seral herbaceous species increased "substantially" in the first
postfire summer [24].


REFERENCES : 
NO-ENTRY

Related categories for Wildlife Species: Centrocercus urophasianus | Sage Grouse