East Idaho News
@eastidnews·585K subscribers·7.7K videos
She spent two years following sage grouse through Idaho desert. New documentary shows why it matters
Posted
March 18, 2026
Views
877
Likes
30
Comments
3
Engagement
March 18, 2026
877
30
3
3.76%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
5:06Now Playing#eastidahonews #outdoors #wildlife #sagegrouse
MENAN – Kris Millgate has been telling stories about Idaho wildlife for two decades, and her latest project is a documentary film about sage grouse.
“Sage Wisdom West” will premiere at the Colonial Theater in downtown Idaho Falls on April 2. Teton Toyota and Raymond James are the film’s sponsors.
Amid the sagebrush on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management trailhead near the Menan Buttes, Millgate tells EastIdahoNews.com the film focuses on the largest grouse in North America and their ecosystem throughout the American West.
“If you look back about a century ago, the whole idea was to rip out as much sagebrush as you can (for homesteading),” Millgate says. “Now, we’re trying to keep as much sagebrush as we can because we realize this ecosystem keeps the West intact and the wildlife that live in the West.”
Millgate spent thousands of hours getting up close and personal with the sage grouse to shoot this documentary. It started in January 2024 in temperatures of -12.
While trying to deal with snot freezing in her nose, Millgate was learning how these birds move in their natural habitat.
Although she’s covered sage grouse and the high desert extensively as a journalist, she says their movement within their own habitat is an element that often gets skipped over, and that was her motivation with this project.
“In order to follow them with a camera, you have to learn their behavior, so that’s what I was doing,” Millgate says.
WATCH OUR INTERVIEW WITH MILLGATE IN THE VIDEO ABOVE.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE
► Subscribe to East Idaho News
► Support East Idaho News
► Download our free app
► Like us on Facebook
► Follow us on X
► Follow us on Instagram
► Get East Idaho News merch
► Subscribe to our free newsletter
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
