The article “Study concludes sage grouse coexist fine with cows,” from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News and reprinted in The Observer, is misleading at best, and downright wrong at worst.

I ranched in the foothills of the Wind River range, on Wyoming’s sagebrush steppe, for 31 years. We were at the epicenter of our country’s most viable population of sage grouse in the United States. We did 10 years of research with the University of Wyoming, including three master degree students on the project during that time. To state that sage grouse coexist fine with cows can be true but not necessarily so.

Graziers managing resources in sage grouse habitat understand it’s not the cow but the how. The “how” means mimicking how our grasslands evolved, with migrating ungulates.

The sage grouse life cycle consists of early brood rearing, late brood rearing, winter, lekking (breeding), and nesting habitats. Good sage grouse habitat has nothing to do with low to moderate levels of cattle grazing. Good habitat has everything to do with grazing animals’ behavior. Fortunately, when cattle behavior mimics the way bison or other grassland ungulates grazed, sage grouse habitat improves.

That behavior begins with bunching animals to create high disturbance events of heavy grazing, trampling, defecating, urinating and salivating. This creates a plethora of plant germination sites and mulch covering the soil as the animals leave and don’t return for a long period of time. The long period of rest allows grazed plants to recover and new seedlings to root down and reach up for sunlight.

All of the grasslands in the world evolved with grazing ungulates bunching in large herds to protect themselves from predators. By being in large herds, they consumed and trampled the forage in a short time and had to move on to get something to eat. This movement kept the animals ahead of the fly hatch, which layed eggs in the manure, feeding dung beetles and the soil. As a result of grazing animals’ movement, grazed plants are not overgrazed and have the time and space to recover. Seedlings are established for increased plant diversity, recycled manure builds soil, and the grazing animals have no flies. This high disturbance event and long period of rest provides habitat necessary for sage grouse.

The 10-day early brood rearing stage of a chick’s life requires high protein diets consisting of insects and forbs. The high disturbance event and absence of pesticides will provide conditions for a healthy population of forbs and insects, necessary for the young chicks to get their legs under them.

The late brood rearing stage takes sage grouse to the riparian areas through the hot season. In my experience, sage grouse actually follow the movement of grazing animals across riparian areas. Grazed riparian areas allow the sage grouse to see the skies and avoid raptors. In ungrazed riparian areas they are like sitting ducks.

Sagebrush provides the sage grouse’s winter habitat, being one of few species that can draw nutrition from that iconic species.

The sage grouse’s lek is an open area that the birds return to each spring for generations. Roosters gather to the lek for the breeding season as hens visit before finding a nesting site. The area must be open so everyone can keep an eye peeled for raptors. In general, grazing does not affect the lek site.

Sage grouse nesting occurs just off the lip of a slight draw, or arroyo, under a sagebrush, with grass cover. I have seen a sage grouse nest go undisturbed, with 2,400 head of cows and calves in a quarter section. Crows and coyotes eat sage grouse eggs but herbivore grazing does not disturb sage grouse nests.

The article correctly states that it’s not the cow that damages sage grouse habitat. However, it is incorrect in stating that good sage grouse habitat requires low to moderate grazing. Actually, the opposite may be true, in that a high disturbance event, even heavy grazing, followed by a long period of rest provides good sage grouse habitat. These conditions rely on animal behavior that mimics the way our grasslands evolved, with migrating grazing ungulates.