PBS Program Chronicles Sage Grouse and Other Inhabitants of the Sagebrush Sea

Reader Contribution by K.C. Compton
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WNET Thirteen’s new Nature episode, “The Sagebrush Sea,” tracks the Greater Sage Grouse and other wildlife through the seasons as they struggle to survive in a rugged and changing landscape. The program airs Wednesday, May 20, at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings) and will be available for streaming after the broadcast on the PBS website.

If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to make your way to the sagebrush steppes of the western U.S. during sage grouse mating season, you probably will consider the experience one of the highlights of your life. For pure theatricality and showmanship, a male sage grouse vying for female attention is hard to beat. They puff and pop and practically dance their handsome feathers off in a stiff competition to show to the females gathered on the lek (a sagebrush-ringed clearing) that they, not those other puny chickens, should be fathers of the next generation.

The heck of it is, it works. By some set of criteria known only to the ladies of the lek, one or two males get thumbs, er, claws up and they – and only they – are allowed to breed that season. How the remaining males deal with this disappointment is unknown, though it’s suspected they play a lot of video games in their parents’ basement and troll strangers on the Internet.

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