Washington Projects

Washington Shrubsteppe Restoration and Resiliency Initiative

Our Goals
Protect and restore Washington’s shrub-steppe ecosystem to ensure resilience for endangered birds, wildlife, and communities dependent on this unique arid landscape.
What We’re Doing
Audubon unites grassroots chapters with policy, science, and conservation expertise to drive coordinated local, state, and federal actions that strengthen shrub-steppe health and biodiversity.
Landscape view of sagebrush and a river

Sagebrush birds tell us it’s time to act.

The shrub-steppe is an iconic arid land ecosystem of shrubs, grasses, and wildflowers native to the western United States. This unique landscape, sometimes called the “sagebrush sea,” covers millions of acres of Eastern Washington’s Columbia Plateau, sustaining a rich diversity of plants, birds, and other wildlife. Unfortunately, threats to this ecosystem are putting bird species and the communities that rely upon it at risk. Without immediate and aggressive action to rehabilitate these areas and improve ecosystem resilience, species like the state-endangered Greater Sage-grouse are unlikely to persist in Washington. 

Audubon Washington’s shrub-steppe conservation program leverages the power of birds—along with Audubon’s unique organizational structure—to pursue actions at the local, state, and federal level that benefit ecosystem health. We do this by bringing together the grassroots advocacy strength of our eight Eastern Washington chapters with the policy, science, and conservation expertise of our state and national offices towards shared goals for shrub-steppe conservation. Audubon’s shrub-steppe program addresses urgent landscape-level conservation needs that will have a lasting impact on the well-being of wildlife, people, and the ecological health of the region.  

Protecting the birds of the sagebrush sea

Sage-grouse populations serve as a key indicator of the health of sagebrush ecosystems, which continue to face threats from habitat loss and fragmentation. Listed as endangered in Washington State, the Greater Sage-Grouse is a focal point of shrub-steppe conservation efforts across the West and a top priority bird species for Audubon Washington’s conservation initiatives. Audubon Washington is conducting targeted surveys in partnership with landowners and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to assess sage-grouse presence and habitat suitability in the Toppenish Ridge and Rattlesnake Hills Management Areas, providing critical data for species recovery efforts and informing land management strategies. 

This project will fill a much-needed gap in Washington’s Greater Sage-grouse population inventory that will help inform species and land management strategies to support the recovery of sage-grouse and habitats they need to survive.

The Sagebrush Songbird Survey

The Sagebrush Songbird Survey

In 2019, we completed our flagship Sagebrush Songbird Survey, a five-year, collaborative community science project to identify sagebrush songbird distributions within the remaining sagebrush areas in our state.

This joint project with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and local Audubon chapters generated more than 20,000 bird observations from 130 volunteers and represents an unprecedented community undertaking in support of sagebrush birds and their habitat.

A committee of Audubon chapters applied these data in sagebrush conservation, and WDFW used them to create maps of sagebrush songbird distributions, providing legally defensible baseline data that fills a critical need of land use planners, landowners, and conservation partners. Using these data, Audubon has successfully worked to:

  • Ensure that new baseline data on sagebrush songbirds are incorporated into land use planning and management.
  • Leverage public-private partnerships in support of habitat connectivity, fire protection, and rehabilitation.
  • Secure funding to support stakeholder process for least-conflict solar siting.