important bird areas
- IBA Program in Montana
- Featured Montana IBAs:
- Species of Special Concern
greater sage-grouse important bird areas
2012. We have five Important Bird Areas that focus on Greater Sage-Grouse and sagebrush-shrub steppe lands. These are large landscape-level IBAs encompassing over 6 million acres of public and private lands across Montana. These sights were selected for the high densities of male sage grouse at breeding leks in the state.
This coming spring we are heading up the Greater Sage-Grouse Adopt a lek citizen monitoring program to help provide critical breeding information. Learn more and get involved.
CROSSROADS. The Greater Sage-Grouse is a fantastic "umbrella" species. If we protect this grouse across the Montana landscape, we protect many other bird species. Risks form energy development in our state are significant, yet there is time to act. Watch this five minute video -- Crossroads -- great footage of these emblematic birds and spectacular wildlife habitat.
Crossroads (5:16) from Conservation Media on Vimeo.
We are in the process of determining what are most strategic actions are to encourage sage-grouse conservation and educate Montanans about the importance of these IBAs for a suit of sage-associated bird species.
For details of the nomination process and criteria used to create these IBAs, see our report >>
You can download a pdf map of each of these IBAS or link to the site description here;
- Beaverhead Sage-steppe map (761 KB)
Beaverhead site description - Bridger Sage-steppe (634 KB)
Bridger site description - Glaciated Prairie Sage-steppe (535 KB)
Glaciated Prairie site description
- Powder/Carter sage-steppe (518 KB)
Powder/Carter - Mussellshell Sage-steppe (735 KB)
Mussellshell site description
Download the shape file for these five IBAs here: Sagezip
Our key sagebrush-shrubsteppe areas are very similar to the "Core Areas" determined by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. You can download their Core Area Boundaries here: corezip
For more about the sagebrush-shrubsteppe habitat see the ISSUES - SAGE section of our website HERE >>
For information contact: Amy Cilimburg, Director of Bird Conservation, 406-465-1141