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I'm not much of a "chicken little" (pun intended) kind of guy but I also think this has been somewhat of a "sleeper issue" that's not getting the air time it deserves.

That the Greater sage grouse has declined in population is not in dispute -- but what's to be done about it is very much so.

Greenie groups have requested, and .gov has agreed, to make a decision by 2015 as to whether to list it as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

With a range of nearly 50 million acres across 11 states, this decision has the potential to define the future of economic / recreational use of land in the mountain west, including nearly all public land in NV,UT,WY, & MT.

I am unaware of .gov ever contemplating a decision of this scale before.

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The comment period is now open through 2014 on BLM management plans in the affected states.

See:

BLM table of state meetings / proposals

and

BLM PDF of five proposals

The BLM is accepting public comment on 5 proposals ranging from "do nothing" to "full listing"

The one thing everyone agrees upon is that "Do nothing" isn't going to happen.

The middle proposals are based on Utah's current management plan are likely going to need key support to prevent "full listing" from happening.

Be sure to comment during the comment period -- and attend the open house meetings if you can -- as this just may be the whole shebang in one shot.
I would think habitat management would really be the only big issue. Not sure how oil and gas figure in. As far as I've seen roads are mostly a non-issue. Preserving sage and any other habitat requirements couldn't be that difficult, especially when looked at in comparison to the problems that accompany a listing.
that's the hope -- that agreements can be made in areas like fence removal / flagging, and exclusion zones around lekking areas (UT wants 3 miles, Feds want 4).

All of the state F&Gs have management plans in place, the real risk (IMO) is being complacent and allowing a listing to happen when it didn't need to be so.
This could ultimately be a much greater threat to hunting than the wolves. I can see them trying to shut down huge tracts of public land to all use, including hunting, grazing, and off road travel. They're going to push this for all they can wring out of it.
COT report if you are interested.

http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie...t-with-Dear-Interested-Reader-Letter.pdf
I'm sure there's a lot of good info there, but when they totally overlook lack of commercial logging as a potential contributor to increased frequency of western wildfires and attribute increases in conifer invasion of sagebrush to global warming, my BS meter starts to beep.
Conifer encroachment may be facilitated by increases in global carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, and climate change, but the influence of CO2 has not been supported by some research (Archer et al. 1995).

Areas of uncertainty include the effects of climate change and renewable energy development, the lack of robust information on population connectivity, the relationship between specific habitat characteristics and demographic parameters, and the lack of understanding of the processes necessary to restore sagebrush communities (Knick et al. 2003).

The effect of climate change on the amount and distribution of future habitat is largely unknown.

We did not identify objectives for addressing the potential impacts of climate change due to the uncertainties associated with modeling the resulting future condition and distribution of sage-brush habitats.

Threat Reduction ..................................................................................................................................... 38
Fire ...................................................................................................................................................... 40
Non-native, Invasive Plant Species ..................................................................................................... 42
Energy Development .......................................................................................................................... 43
Sagebrush Removal ............................................................................................................................ 44
Grazing ................................................................................................................................................ 44
Range Management Structures ........................................................................................................... 46
Free-Roaming Equid Management ..................................................................................................... 46
Pinyon-juniper Expansion ................................................................................................................... 47
Agricultural Conversion ...................................................................................................................... 48
Mining ................................................................................................................................................. 49
Recreation ........................................................................................................................................... 49
Ex-Urban Development ...................................................................................................................... 50
Infrastructure ....................................................................................................................................... 51
Fences ................................................................................................................................................. 52
Fire is one of the primary factors linked to loss of sagebrush-steppe habitat and corresponding
population declines of greater sage-grouse (Connelly and Braun 1997; Miller and Eddleman
2001). Loss of sagebrush habitat to wildfire has been increasing in the western portion of the
greater sage-grouse range due to an increase in fire frequency. The increase in mean fire
frequency in sagebrush ecosystems has been facilitated by the incursion of nonnative annual
grasses, primarily Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass) and Taeniatherum asperum (medusahead)
(Billings 1994; Miller and Eddleman 2001). The positive feedback loop between exotic annual
grasses and fires can preclude the opportunity for sagebrush to become re-established. Exotic
annual grasses and other invasive plants also alter habitat suitability for sage-grouse by reducing
or eliminating native forbs and grasses essential for food and cover. Annual grasses and noxious
perennials continue to expand their range, facilitated by ground disturbances, including wildfire
(Miller and Eddleman 2001; Balch et al. 2013), improper grazing (Young et al. 1972, 1976),
agriculture (Benvenuti 2007), and infrastructure associated with energy development (Bergquist
et al. 2007). Concern with habitat loss and fragmentation due to fire and invasive plants has
mostly been focused in the western portion of the species� range. However, climate change may
alter the range of invasive plants, potentially expanding the importance of this threat into other
areas of the species� range.

From a layman's perspective the previous quote, coupled with the Archer 1995 info, seems to indicate a lean toward global warming as a potential cause of both situations. Seems a bit far fetched to me. When I then read that some feel that non-native grasses are the cause of increased frequency of wildfires, with no mention of severely curtailed logging, I start to wonder if there's an agenda at work. Very interesting stuff, I guess my previous experience with USFWS biologists and their rather green agendas may have colored my reading of the paper somewhat.
Hate to say it, but the problem areas I have seen in the last 30+ years are due to grazing into oblivion.
Many parts Montana are severely overgrazed. I would bet the rest of the west is no different.
I did a driving job over in Sun Valley for a large philanthropic group. They had a couple of biologists riding around on a ranch with them for a couple of days. When the subject of sage grouse came up, the biologist in my vehicle said roads on the prairie were a very big issue. The local rancher in the vehicle immediately disagreed and I had to add my two cents as well. Jackson Hole airport has a devil of a time keeping the sage grouse off the runway, and I see tons of sage grouse crossing the roads while I'm antelope hunting or just cruising the prairie. Roads don't bother sage grouse in the least.
For you MT folks.

http://fwp.mt.gov/fishAndWildlife/publicComments/sageGrouseAC.html
Originally Posted by Snake River Marksman
Jackson Hole airport has a devil of a time keeping the sage grouse off the runway, and I see tons of sage grouse crossing the roads while I'm antelope hunting or just cruising the prairie. Roads don't bother sage grouse in the least.


Likely that lek predates the airport, but your point is still a good one. The roads may not be a problem, but the weeds that often follow new or existing roads are. Road beds are the perfect area to get cheatgrass established in an area. Once the area burns... goodbye sagebrush and hello cheat. Some of that Snake River Plain country is monoculture of cheatgrass where sagebrush used to grow. Not good for wildlife, ranching or even recreation.
Well they did try something on about the same scale when they tried to "list" the prairie dogs.
The Wyoming toad , and the preebles jumping mouse have kept folks pretty busy on this side of the divide for quite a number of years.
Can't speak to other states, but the Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts has been involved with this Sage Grouse thing pretty heavily for several years, and have been able to get some things agreed to by both production ag and natural resource people and the "save the grouse " folks.
Lots of things to be done yet, and it'll likely turn out to be like most "endangered" species, it'll all hinge on a judges political leanings in the end.
I work for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) We used to be called the Soil Conservation Service (SCS). The sage grouse is one of 7 species that the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP) is intended to help and avoid the need for an Endangered Species listing.

NRCS Sage Grouse page: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal...rams/financial/whip/?cid=stelprdb1047022

If you're a private landowner in the focus area and want to do something, contact your local NRCS office for more information.

Sorry for all the abbreviations but that's the government for you. smile

Dale
I don't see any mention of the effects of predatory birds on the Sage Grouse. Every time I drive through eastern Montana or Wyoming I see more hawks and eagles than I see antelope. I don't think road killed deer and antelope are the only things that they are eating.

For the past 5 or so years there has been a bunch of wild turkeys that roost in the trees on the hill above my neighbors house. Every day in the winter months between 20-30 turkeys have been coming down into my and my neighbors yards. In the summers, the hens move down into the hayfields, but 5 o5 6 toms used to stick around the houses.

This past spring a pair of Red Tail Hawks built a nest in a cottonwood tree by the creek below our houses. Now I see the hawks every day, but I haven't seen a turkey in months.
Oil and gas roads fragment habitat. I took Renewable Resource Management with a Conservation Enforcement specialty in College. One field trip we took to watch the mating dances on a "lek". The oil and gas roads also plow under more of the tall mature sage the birds require.

The instructor mainly blamed the lack of prairie fires and livestock grazing in the mature tall sage the grouse use for shelter. Cattle knock down the brush and graze the grass short reducing the hiding cover (mainly when the hens are on the nest). Fire required to rejuvenate the sage, otherwise it gets quite woody and not as much succulent browse.

Anyways that is what I remember from an early morning in April 1989.
Originally Posted by Rock Chuck
This could ultimately be a much greater threat to hunting than the wolves. I can see them trying to shut down huge tracts of public land to all use, including hunting, grazing, and off road travel. They're going to push this for all they can wring out of it.


They are threatening oil and gas drilling in west texas and NM over the prairie chicken.

Fat chance of helping them with hawks being protected and no 1080 for coyotes.
Originally Posted by buffybr
I don't see any mention of the effects of predatory birds on the Sage Grouse. Every time I drive through eastern Montana or Wyoming I see more hawks and eagles than I see antelope. I don't think road killed deer and antelope are the only things that they are eating.

For the past 5 or so years there has been a bunch of wild turkeys that roost in the trees on the hill above my neighbors house. Every day in the winter months between 20-30 turkeys have been coming down into my and my neighbors yards. In the summers, the hens move down into the hayfields, but 5 o5 6 toms used to stick around the houses.

This past spring a pair of Red Tail Hawks built a nest in a cottonwood tree by the creek below our houses. Now I see the hawks every day, but I haven't seen a turkey in months.


Normally, big hawks will move the turkeys out. West texas ranchers may only have trees around the ranch houses and water holes. They have told me if they have wild turkey coming to roost daily, if one hawk or horned owl sits in the roost trees the turkeys will not come in. Hawks and owls are real rough on young turkeys (quail, too).

Often I have seen turkey roost on power line poles if they have a horizontal beam, even the really big power lines where they use the double and tall poles.
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I've seen sagehen populations go from healthy and abundant to struggling small flocks, spaced many times farther apart. I would estimate they are down 90% from when I was a kid, hunting them in the late 1950's.

Fires, feral horses, mining, feral horses, 40 year drought cycle here, feral horses, cattle grazing, and feral horses have had an enormous impact on the populations here in NV.

BUT...a Major factor is West Nile Virus! West Nile is killing sagehen by the thousands, and the solution isn't in sight.

Next year might be the last sagehen hunt. It's coming, and soon. frown
They are gorgeous birds! I hope that a real answer (one void of politically motivated stupidity) can be found without listing them. Your photography is, as always, incredible, mtmiller!
Obviously this is going to turn into a political chitshow. Anyone with a brain can figure that out.

The sage grouse will be used as a pawn for the greeny agenda.


Grazing has been going on for over 100 years now. Safe to say that in the last 50 years grazing practices have greatly improved.


I can think of several well managed ranches that used to be full of sage grouse 20 years ago. And this was following the drought of the 1980's when grass wasn't nearly as plentiful as it's been lately.


Same ranches now have a small fraction of what used to exist.


Same fences, same roads, same or better grass yet the sage hens are gone.

More coyotes, more predatory birds, terrible winter 2010.


The goons trapped/netted a bunch out on some BLM and sent them to Canada(?) where most of them all died. I think they drove around on 4-wheelers and caught them.

Miller should be able to give details on that screw-up.


And why is there still a hunting season for sage grouse?
FWIW, transplants have been successful in Utah. It appears the key in making this successful was a very aggressive predator control prior to the transplant. The control focused on red foxes and nest robbing birds (magpies and ravens). Through this and habitat work, in a 5-7 year period (I can't recall the exact time) that population went from an estimated 100ish to over 500.

IMO, a range wide listing of the bird would be silly. There are areas where LOTS of work is being done and the birds are responding well. It'd be a shame to not recognize and reward these efforts. Certain parts of northern Utah have more birds now than any time in the last 30 years, with most of that increase being in the past decade or so. If listing is needed, I think it should be done on a smaller scale, possibly even smaller than at a state scale. It's already being done like this for other species such as the pygmy rabbit.

Though I won't say that grazing cannot be a problem for the birds, there is a whole lot of info/data showing that grazing can be done in a manner that does not negatively impact sage grouse and can even help. If managed properly, grazing can be used to manipulate the vegetation to be better for sage grouse. It can be a tool to increase sagebrush in some areas and decrease it in others, depending upon the need of that local area. Yes, too much sagebrush can be a problem for sage grouse.

Couple of misc points. In the Intermountain West, overgrazing leads to an increase in sagebrush. This is largely through reduced competition giving sagebrush seedlings a leg up on grass species. The 'big' sagebrush species (basin, Wyoming, and mountain) are killed by fire and can take a long time to return to an area as they do not resprout, but have to re-establish via seeds. The dispersal distances per year is generally measured in feet.

Originally Posted by SamOlson


Miller should be able to give details on that screw-up.




My involvement was nil.
Luv2safari hit it on the nut about West Nile Virus here in SD where there were very few anyway. Only in specific locations due to their sage make up and being owned by the state who watched that land use hard. For 7-8 years we'd get a 2 day season in the middle of the week in parts of Harding and Butte counties, the limit was 1 bird per person for the season , usually a weds and Thursday. The GFP ran a big field crew to collect blood ,tissue and a wing sample for biological data for study and when you got right down to it that's the only reason there was a season. The weds-Thursday timing was done to specifically limit the hunters numbers involved period and my did those East River guys howl about that. West Nile took 90+%in one spring and the following season netted 1 or no birds then they canceled anymore seasons. No shortages of hawks ,eagles and coyotes in that country either. From what I've seen since the WN virus didn't help the huns and sharptails up their either nor did the winter of 2010. Magnum Man
Interesting post Pointer, glad to see there is still common sense in your profession...grin


Miller, I think they also want to send some over to ND as well?

Maybe they already did? Either way hopefully it's a start in the right direction.


MM, can't comment on West Nile because I can't physically 'see' it. 90% mortality is obviously tremendously bad news for the bird.



Mostly everything that Pointer said....

Sage Grouse have been declining almost since they began surveying populations, and it's been happening across their entire range.

That kind of decline is almost always habitat related. Livestock grazing, and now exacerbated by this long term drought/Al Gore induced global warming. Here in west-central Colorado, P/J encroachment on sage in many areas have been significant--that points to a absence of fire (interesting in comparision to ranger1's post in the western part of the grouse range). The rate of decline has also increased.

Predators and disease tend to have a much bigger impact on a declining population, whereas in a healthy or growing population those same factors can have relatively little impact (at least what we can measure).

The Gunnison Sage Grouse has shown little improvement despite Colorado DPW range management agreements with the ranching community in the Gunnison Bason.

The biologists involved in Gunnison Grouse management expected a bit better results.

Casey

So give each 4H or FFA kid a 1/2 dozen to raise with the farm chickens.
We will be covered up with them in no time.

Add that fur prices have been down for 20 yrs = more varmints.
Eagles,Ravens and magpies have been protected to the detriment of
the Sage Grouse.
Originally Posted by alpinecrick

Mostly everything that Pointer said....

Sage Grouse have been declining almost since they began surveying populations, and it's been happening across their entire range.

That kind of decline is almost always habitat related. Livestock grazing, and now exacerbated by this long term drought/Al Gore induced global warming. Here in west-central Colorado, P/J encroachment on sage in many areas have been significant--that points to a absence of fire (interesting in comparision to ranger1's post in the western part of the grouse range). The rate of decline has also increased.

Predators and disease tend to have a much bigger impact on a declining population, whereas in a healthy or growing population those same factors can have relatively little impact (at least what we can measure).

The Gunnison Sage Grouse has shown little improvement despite Colorado DPW range management agreements with the ranching community in the Gunnison Bason.

The biologists involved in Gunnison Grouse management expected a bit better results.

Casey

I agree that it is a habitat issue and your rationale that points to that. Good news, at least in my simple mind, is that it can be improved and the results are often fairly quickly seen. It's just whether or not folks will have the stomach and the funds to get done what needs to get done.

PJ encroachment is a H U G E problem in much of Utah. A prof at Univ. Nevada-Reno estimates that 50K acres of juniper in Utah would have to be killed annually for quite a few years to keep from increasing PJ biomass statewide! Problem is too many folks don't like the tools that it takes (herbicide and chaining) to accomplish that...

Interesting results on the Gunnison's. I thought they were doing okay and were recently either delisted or downgraded in their listing. I would love to shoot one of those! laugh

Sam- I've changed professions a bit, so maybe I took all the common sense with me... wink laugh That said, I keep working on my wife to let me get back there to do that. So far no luck...
Originally Posted by buffybr
I don't see any mention of the effects of predatory birds on the Sage Grouse. Every time I drive through eastern Montana or Wyoming I see more hawks and eagles than I see antelope. I don't think road killed deer and antelope are the only things that they are eating.



Originally Posted by AlpineRick
Predators and disease tend to have a much bigger impact on a declining population, whereas in a healthy or growing population those same factors can have relatively little impact (at least what we can measure).



these two quotes are inter-related and, unfortunately, there are politics involved here too (go figure).

The USFWS estimates there are 8,000 breeding pairs of Golden Eagles in Wy and 4,000 in Utah.

The MBTA & Bald & Golden Eagle Protection Act provide for the capture of Golden Eagles for falconry (as well as depredation for things such as wind farms, etc).

Problem: The FDA (really, WTF?) administers the approval of individual permits and, due to politics, issues less that 10% of the USFWS's biologically approved quota. Indeed, the last two years they've issued ZERO capture permits in either state.

There has also meet a political roadblock in trying to get approval to hunt Corvids (ravens,crows,magpies) with falconry raptors.
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