The sage grouse is an exceptionally showy bird and an icon of the American West. But its sagebrush habitat is disappearing, and there is debate over how best to protect the populations in an increasingly developed landscape.

A new study by University of Washington, state and federal researchers analyzed sage grouse in Eastern Washington and showed a surprisingly large benefit from a federal program that subsidizes farmers to plant year-round grasses and native shrubs instead of crops. Although the program was adopted for many different reasons, the study finds it is probably the reason sage grouse still live in portions of Washington’s Columbia Basin. The study will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management.

“Without these lands, our models predict that we would lose about two thirds of the species’ habitat, and that the sage grouse would go extinct in two of three subpopulations,” said first author Andrew Shirk, a research scientist with UW Climate Impacts Group.