Oregon's Indicator Grouse
Posted by
Eric de Place
06/29/2005 08:11 AM
What do sage-grouse tell us about region's deserts?
To the casual observer, the sage brush country of the American West looks like the Big Empty--undisturbed land stretching to the horizon. So vast is this landscape that early travelers dubbed it "the sagebrush sea." The reality, however, is that the rich native biological integrity of this Inland Northwest ecosystems has been substantially diminished. And no single creature is better proof of this than the sage-grouse.
