Thursday, February 11, 2010

Master's Project

This is Sterling giving you an update on our recent news. As most of you know, I recently applied for graduate school at BYU. Well, after a long and tedious process, I was just advised by Dr. Larsen that he would like to recommend me to work on his sage grouse project coming up in March.


(Dr. Larsen)

Now, he cannot accept people into the graduate program as that decision is left up to the graduate committee. However, with a professor willing to sponsor me, I am pretty much guaranteed acceptance. So, hopefully the committee will meet soon and will officially accept me as a master’s student at the university.

What’s that you say? What is a sage grouse, and who gives a flying leap about them? Well, this is a sage grouse, also known as a prairie chicken:



This is a male, and during mating, they puff up these air sacs in their chest and perform a rather elaborate mating dance trying to impress the ladies who watch from the sidelines. They live in large open areas of sagebrush, and during mating season they gather in a more or less bare patch in the sage brush called a lek, and males strut their stuff.



So, who gives a flying leap about these birds? Well, for many years, they have been sought after as a game species for hunters, and they are also enjoyed by many people for the mating rituals that I have described. Recently, however, these birds have seen a dramatic decrease in their population. Several studies were performed to see if they should be considered endangered or not. While the controversy of listing them is still up in the air and in the hands of the politicians, the studies have discovered perhaps the main cause for their decline. As I stated, these birds live in large, open areas of sage brush. Many of these large areas have been reduced to smaller sizes. Additionally, the open areas are being dotted with various types of tall structures. Raptors, such as hawks and falcons, perch on these structures and can easily pick off the grouse.







(Notice the two oil rigs behind the grouse)










Because of the habitat problems, birds have stopped using the limited number of leks (strutting grounds) and overall have just had a hard time surviving.



Now don’t get me wrong, I am not an environmentalist tree hugger. My license plate cover says “save a tree, shoot a tree hugger”. I don’t believe in the concept that we should preserve everything and that man is evil and destroying the planet. However, I don’t believe that we are entitled to exploit the world we live in with no regard for the consequences. I believe that we should be responsible stewards of this earth—using the resources we have, but ensuring that they will be well taken care of.



That being said, here is the purpose of my project. The state of Utah has five core populations of sage grouse that they consider to be vital to the survival of the species in the state. In an effort to find out what these populations need to survive, the state is willing to pay thousands of dollars (mostly from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses) to study each population. This way, we can ensure their survival, but also allow other entities to use the land around them without a major affect on future numbers. So far, the project has done wonders, and bird numbers are recovering quite well. However, the state has only conducted this study on 4/5 populations. Guess what, I will be studying the fifth.

Sponsored by BYU and funded by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, and under the direction of Dr. Larsen, I will go out to the diamond Mountains near Vernal Utah to study this last major population.



(More or less the area, Vernal is in the background)


I will trap,


measure and weigh,








and radio collar about 100 grouse.




















I will then track them over the next several months to record their migration routes, leks, and other habitat being used.


Over the spring and summer, I will be in Vernal at a bunk house for four days and three nights, and then I will be back with Erika for the rest of the week. I will probably have a crew out there working with me also. Starting in September, I will be taking classes, compiling data, and traveling to Vernal about once a week to collect more data.

So this is what I will be doing for the next couple of years. Things are not for sure until the graduate committee makes their decision, and even then, the project might not be exactly as I described it. But as far as I know, this is what awaits me.

And may I add as a side note, this is the most messed up and non-user friendly program I have used since elementary school when computers were being developed. I can't believe Google would produce a program so bad for posting blogs.

7 comments:

Carlson Family said...

Sterling, what an awesome post! I agree that it isn't very user-friendly (thus my infrequent posts), but you gave a great play by play of your activities for next few years. And the pictures really helped to visualize everything. I loved it!

David said...

I think the plural should be grice.

That sounds awesome! Should be right up your alley, or street, or lane, or bowling locale. Sounds like a blast! Except for being in Vernal for four days and in Orem for three; that's lame.

The Pickled Red Herring said...

Congrats on the acceptance! And I think it is very adorable that you care so much about sage grouses... grice... And, agreed on blogger being non-user friendly.

Sterling said...

I like grice. I will have to put that in a paper I publish.

Oh, and Krista, honestly, I don't care about the birds all that much. I would rather be studying bears or wolves or deer or something, but this project is available, so you take what you can get. I just did what I could on the post to make myself feel important and like I was participating in something that mattered (it really doesn't matter though) :)

Justin said...

Sage grouse totally matter! I think your research will help us understand more than just one population of birds. I'm very happy for you. And I suspect you'll gradually become more environmentalist...and that's a good thing. You rock!

James and Melony said...

That is really interesting Sterling :) I hope you have fun with it - too bad that the birds don't live in southern arizona...just sayin... :) hope you guys are doing good and wee one is still keepin you on your toes :) let me know the status on the other wee one too :)

David said...

If you are all interested, you could consider moving your blog to posterous.com. The blog format is so much easier; you can simply email the site's email, and it will update your blog for you.