Volunteers Needed for Sagebrush Seed Collection

Sagebrush

IDAHO FISH AND GAME HEADQUARTERS NEWS RELEASE - Boise, ID
Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter and officials from the state departments of Agriculture and Fish and Game are asking for several hundred volunteers to help gather sagebrush seed on four Saturdays - up to 80 volunteers on each day - November 17, and December 1, 8 and 15 in the southwest Idaho region.
The Magic Valley region also will need up to 60 volunteers on each of four Saturdays - November 10 and 17 and December 1 and 8. "More than 2 million acres of private, county, state and federal land burned in Idaho during this year's fire season," Otter said. "Thousands of people were temporarily forced out of their homes, and lives were put at risk. We owe it to the people we serve to act in concert with our neighboring states to reduce this annual threat and restore the lands on which our lifestyle and economy depend."
The Murphy Fire burned more than 650,000 acres of sagebrush steppe in southern Idaho and northern Nevada. Of 75 sage-grouse leks within the fire perimeter, 39 were known to be active in the past five years.
This part of Idaho and Nevada is one of the few remaining places with large areas of unfragmented sagebrush habitat. Seeding sagebrush within the burned area will speed the return of suitable habitat for sage grouse and other wildlife dependant on sagebrush. Officials plan to seed by aerial broadcast a diverse mixture of native and nonnative grasses and forbs on more than 8,000 acres, bitterbrush on more than 1,200 acres and locally collected sagebrush seed on more than 22,000 acres of burned sage-grouse nesting and wintering habitat during fall 2007 and spring 2008.
Seeding key areas can drastically improve the probability of restoring the Jarbidge sagebrush steppe ecosystem.
Volunteers have helped Fish and Game collect locally adapted sagebrush seed every fall since 1992 in the Southwest Region. Sagebrush seeds are tiny - about the size of a pin head - and it takes about 2 million to make a pound of cleaned seeds.
To sign up or for information, contact Fish and Game at 208-327-7095 in the Southwest Region and 208-324-4359 in the Magic Valley Region.