Conservation partners across 11 western states are rallying in unprecedented fashion to reduce threats to sage-grouse and the sagebrush ecosystem they occupy.

Improvements made in the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) wildfire policy are a tremendous step forward but the 2012 wildfire season is a harsh reminder that more action is needed to improve our effectiveness in reducing impacts to sage-grouse.

Challenges and opportunities presented here are intended to heighten awareness of the wildfire issue and to further accelerate a mutually agreed upon, spatially explicit path forward, so that all partners can quickly engage in its implementation.

Managers charged with managing landscapes influenced by elk are challenged to establish monitoring protocols that identify when impacts are responsible for declining ecological condition.

We assessed the impact of elk herbivory on plant communities on an elk winter range by comparing canopy cover of common species that represented subjectively selected heavy and light elk impacts.

Winter elk use has little direct impact on existing bunchgrasses, but winter elk traffic disrupts soils and provides the potential for invasive plant establishment.

Between 2008 and 2010 a cultivated field of 57 ha within the mixed grass prairie of southeastern Alberta was restored with native grasses and silver sagebrush plugs.

Wildlife occupying the site increased from being dominated by horned larks to 13 species using the land within 3 years. Two of these species Sprague's pipit and chestnut-collared longspur are native grassland specialists considered “Threatened” under Canada's Species at Risk Act.

Litter values on the reseed in year 3 were approaching normal values that would be expected on a loamy site within a healthy mixed grass prairie.