Sage-Grouse: From Leks to Lesson Plans

An estimated 200,000 sage-grouse inhabit more than 56 million acres across eleven states in North America. NRCS' sage-grouse Initiative works to protect the sage-grouse and its habitat. One of the components of the Initiative is improving outreach to area landowners about sage­grouse and educating them on the steps they can take to help maintain a healthy grouse population. Overall education and outreach are also goals of the Initiative, because the use of the species habitat for land and energy development is creating a more scarce population of sage­grouse. AE, a company based in Missoula, Montana, was established in 2007. Its mission is to build the classroom of the future, focused around wildlife and biological education. As a part of fulfilling this mission, AE has designed a solar trailer that has the ability to be located almost anywhere, with video monitoring equipment, including videoconferencing. The monitoring equipment has the ability to record and transmit video live to a pre-established website.