Sagebrush Focal Areas (SFAs) are a refinement of Greater Sage Grouse habitat delineating the most valuable habitat to the Greater Sage Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus). They are a subset of the "Highly Important Landscapes" identified by the US Fish and Wildlife Service October, 2014. This dataset is a further refinement of the data layer, "SFA_Draft_January_2015_DIS" released by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) National Operations Center (NOC) in January, 2015. The SFAs were identified to further protect highly valuable sage grouse habitat and develop conservation strategies as described in the Administrative Draft Proposed Plan (ADPP) for the Idaho and Southwestern Montana Greater Sage Grouse Environmental Impact Statement. Areas within SFAs will be managed as Priority Habitat Management Areas (PHMA) and may include areas of non-habitat. It does not include all PHMA identified by the Idaho and Southwestern Montana sub-region. There are numerous isolated parcels of SFA within PHMA in areas where non BLM /USFS managed lands were removed. The ArcGIS Metadata Lineage section describes the processing that was done to the, "SFA_Draft_January_2015_DIS" layer. (Note, Lineage section content was collated into the FGDC Metadata Abstract secton in 2019.) No SFA was delineated in the SW Montana or USFS Raft River Unit in Utah for the Idaho and SW Montana GRSG Sub-region.

The "SFA_Draft_January_2015_DIS" received from the NOC was described as a modified version of the FWS developed data depicting “Highly Important Landscapes”, as outlined in Memorandum FWS/AES/058711. A description of modifications made to the "Highly Important Landscapes" in the development of SFA_Draft_January_2015_DIS" can be found in the metadata for SFA_Draft_January_2015_DIS". Processing steps below describe further refinement of that layer done by the Idaho State BLM Office.

Three areas of Non-Habitat managed by the BLM or USFS are included at the direction of the Washington Office. These include an area in and adjacent to the BLM Donkey Hills ACEC, approximately 12,400 acres; 4,900 acres managed by the USFS in the Lost River Range described as Borah Peak, and 6,800 acres of USFS managed lands described as Big Flat Top Mountain/ Copper Basin Knob. It does not include all PHMA identified by the Idaho and Southwestern Montana sub-region. It is limited to BLM and USFS managed lands.

Within Idaho, areas removed from the original layer provided by the NOC, 842,900 acres

75,800 acres BLM Non-Habitat, 61,800 acres within Wilderness Study Areas

9,600 acres BLM IHMA (800 in Great Rift WSA, 8,800 east of Craters NM adjacent to PHMA)

1,600 acres BLM GHMA, in the Great Rift and Cedar Butte WSAs

300 acres USFS Non-Habitat

460,700 acres National Park Service Non-Habitat in Craters of the Moon NM

200 acres DOE (INL) PHMA

26,200 acres Other Federal Lands PHMA (USDA Sheep Research Station)

12,400 acres US Fish and Wildlife Service managed lands Non-Habitat in the Minidoka National Wildlife Refuge

300 acres Military Non-Habitat

127,200 acres Idaho State lands PHMA

2,200 acres Idaho State lands Non-Habitat

121,100 acres Private lands in PHMA

100 acres in Private IHMA

5,100 acres in Private, non-habitat