Meet the ‘Frankenbird’: High Schoolers Built Robot Grouse to Save a Struggling Species
A group of Wyoming high school students built robotic bird decoys out of car batteries, 3D-printed heads and even HelloFresh packaging foam — all to help save one of the West’s most threatened birds. The experimental effort near Grand Teton National Park is testing whether these homemade robots can lure greater sage grouse away from a dangerous airport lek and into safer, restored habitat after decades of steep population decline.
Greater sage grouse populations across the West have fallen by as much as 80 percent since the 1960s, largely due to habitat loss, energy development and human disturbance, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In the Jackson Hole region of Wyoming, the situation is even more urgent, with small and isolated groups of birds struggling to survive, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. The species’ elaborate mating rituals and fierce attachment to their breeding grounds make the conservation challenge uniquely difficult.
Sage Grouse Populations Have Crashed and Their Breeding Loyalty Complicates Rescue
According to the National Audubon Society, male sage grouse perform courtship displays on communal breeding grounds called leks — fanning their tails, inflating air sacs and producing popping sounds to attract females. These birds are highly loyal to their breeding sites, often returning to the same location year after year, a behavior known as site fidelity, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
A remaining lek near Jackson Hole Airport has put grouse in conflict with growing air traffic. Bird strikes pose a risk to aircraft, particularly with larger birds. Sage grouse rarely abandon established leks on their own, meaning conservation efforts often require creative strategies — especially targeting younger males — to encourage new breeding sites.
Why Grand Teton’s Sage Grouse Needed More Than New Habitat
Over the past eight years, a collaborative effort at Grand Teton National Park has restored about 100 acres of former pasture near the Jackson Hole Airport back into high-quality sage grouse habitat. Park staff, youth crews and community partners all contributed to the restoration.
But as park spokesperson Emily Davis wrote to SFGATE, creating the right environment is only half the equation — the birds also have to actually use it. Because sage grouse rely heavily on social cues when choosing breeding grounds, researchers turned to an unconventional solution: battery-powered decoys designed to mimic real grouse behavior.
“One of the challenges with restoration is that even when you create great habitat, wildlife doesn’t always show up right away,” Davis wrote.
The decoys puff their chests, move around and play recorded calls at dawn to simulate an active lek. “To help jumpstart that activity, the team built lifelike stationary and robotic decoys and they play recorded breeding sounds to simulate an active lek,” Davis wrote. “The idea is to encourage birds to begin displaying and mating at the restored site. Because brood-rearing happens near the lek, this can help draw more sage-grouse to the area over time.”
Jackson Hole Students Build the ‘Frankenbird’ Sage Grouse Decoys
The robotic decoys were built by students from Jackson Hole High School working with Gary Duquette, a former engineering teacher who now mentors robotics students through the nonprofit Wonder Institute. The team combined 3D-printed technology with an eclectic mix of repurposed everyday materials to create lifelike decoys programmed to mimic the sage grouse’s elaborate courtship displays.
“It’s kind of a Frankenbird,” said Duquette, per WyoFile. Powered by car batteries and programmed to gyrate to a sultry sage grouse soundtrack, the robo-grouse “kind of do a turn, turn, turn, then do their wing, wing, wing.”
The team modeled outer shells after a taxidermist’s form, built at a plastics lab in Riverton. Each bird features a 3D-printed head, while real grouse wings — provided by Wyoming Game and Fish staff from hunter surveys — add authenticity. Body feathers came from fly-tying materials at a local angling shop, and even packaging foam from a HelloFresh meal kit was repurposed to mimic the birds’ white breast feathers, complete with bright yellow air sacs.
What Sage Grouse Decline Means for the Sagebrush Ecosystem
The stakes of this experiment extend well beyond one airport lek. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, sagebrush can make up nearly all of the sage grouse’s winter diet. The National Audubon Society considers the bird an indicator species — its decline signals broader environmental problems affecting many other plants and animals in the region. Only a small percentage of dominant males account for most successful matings, further limiting genetic diversity, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“It’s a better alternative than the de-icing pads,” said Bryan Bedrosian, conservation director at the Teton Raptor Center and one of the involved biologists.
For small, isolated populations like those in the Jackson Hole area, that genetic bottleneck intensifies concerns about long-term viability. Researchers are closely monitoring whether the birds respond to the robotic cues during the breeding season. Results remain to be seen — but the effort represents a test case for whether technology-assisted behavioral nudges can complement habitat restoration for a species that refuses to be easily relocated. The approach is still unproven, but it reflects a growing willingness among researchers to pair habitat restoration with innovative technology to influence animal behavior.
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