Greater Sage-Grouse Management Zone Boundaries in Western North America

Western United States and Canada management zone boundaries for Greater and Gunnison sage-grouse. The boundaries were digitized from a hand-drawn figure created by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Sage-grouse Conservation Planning Framework Team for a 2015 conservation strategy. The dataset is maintained by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management.

Use Cases

• Overlay management zone boundaries with land cover data to assess habitat fragmentation within specific zones.
• Analyze the spatial relationship between zone boundaries and known lek locations for population connectivity studies.
• Use the zone polygons as a base layer for regional conservation planning and policy mapping exercises.

Strengths

• Boundaries cover the entire western United States and Canada for both Greater and Gunnison sage-grouse species.
• Data is available in multiple geospatial formats including KML, GEOJSON, and ArcGIS REST services for interoperability.

Limitations

• The dataset is a preliminary version digitized from a hand-drawn figure, which may introduce digitization inaccuracies.
• The underlying data and zone definitions are from 2015 and may not reflect current population distributions or management priorities.

Provenance

Source

Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) Sage-grouse Conservation Planning Framework Team, via the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Collection Method

Digitized from a hand-drawn figure created for the Greater Sage-grouse Comprehensive Conservation Strategy.

Time Range

Framework created circa 2015.

Freshness

Metadata indicates a last update in 2026, but the core data originates from a 2015 framework.

Geography

Western United States and Canada.