It’s a love dance, the traditional and elaborate courtship
ritual of the greater sage grouse. From the Buffalo Bulletin And
it’s one of nature’s greatest shows; an ancient ecological
pageant. Males puff up their white-feathered chests and their
air sacks make a sound like “kerplunk;” their spiky tail
feathers fan and shake. Like boxers, the males bob and weave
over the lek – all for the attention and affection of the dun-
colored hens that watch. According to the Audubon Society, just
150,000 greater sage grouse are left in the West. A new U.S.
Bureau of Land Management study indicates that energy
development and West Nile virus outbreaks threaten to make the
sage grouse extinct in Wyoming. According to the “Powder River
Basin Sage Grouse Viability Study,” from 2001 to 2005, sage
grouse populations have declined 82 percent within the coalbed
methane fields in northeast Wyoming. Indeed, of the three
Canadian provinces and 16 states where the sage grouse once
flourished, substantial populations exist only in sev