BLM ID Greater Sage-grouse Seasonal Use Areas poly

Spring, summer and winter seasonal use areas are mapped by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for Idaho. Idaho SUAs are a generalized set of polygons representing spring, summer, and winter habitat for Greater Sage-Grouse. The IDF&G habitat suitability index (HSI) model was used as a starting point, which was built using a species distribution modeling technique known as maximum entropy, or Maxent. The program Maxent uses known point locations (e.g. VHF and GPS telemetry points) and a suite of habitat predictor variables (GIS layers) to characterize conditions of occupied habitat. We selected habitat variables related to vegetation type, percent cover, topography, and landscape context (e.g., how much of the landscape has at least 10 percent sagebrush cover). Maxent models the set of conditions that are typically found at the training points, then applies that model to the full landscape, creating a wall-to-wall estimate of habitat suitability based on how similar conditions are to occupied habitat.