LINCOLN COUNTY, WashingtonWhen scientist Michael Schroeder was looking for a place to live in eastern Washington State, he chose to be within an hour and a half drive of seven species of grouse, the birds he has been studying for the last 22 years.

But when it came to North America’s largest grouse species, the greater sage-grouse, Schroeder, a scientist at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, had to bring in the birds himself. 

Since 2008, his team has captured 279 sage-grouse in southern Oregon, where the population is more healthy, and has released them here in Lincoln County, Washington.

“Washington historically was a major part of the sage-grouse range. We had a lot of habitat here,” Schroeder says. “Because so many