Welcome back, sage grouse

Apparently the sage grouse are back.

Following two of years of favorable spring weather, bird numbers have rebounded. There will be a sage grouse hunting season this year beginning Sept. 1 and ending Sept. 30. The bag limit and season remain the same as last year -- two birds a day with four in possession.

The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided last year not to include the bird on the Endangered Species List. The threat of inclusion on the list had dogged sage grouse for a decade.

Sage grouse have nearly vanished from North Dakota and Saskatchewan. Declining populations in Montana were blamed on habitat loss, livestock grazing practices, and even West Nile virus.

Had the bird been included on the endangered list, ranchers would have faced further restrictions on grazing, and hunting, most likely, would have been halted.

Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks even had a plan to close the hunting season when sage grouse numbers dropped below 45 percent of their long-term average. There was nothing in the plan concerning the reopening of the hunting season.

Now, apparently, all is well. FWP attributes the decline and subsequent rebound to weather and normal cycles in bird populations.

“These kind of population cycles are normal,” FWP wildlife habitat and Farm Bill coordinator Catherine Wightman said in a press release.

FWP doesn’t actually count sage grouse. Instead they monitor 88 leks around the state.

“We use those as a barometer for population trends,” Wightman said.

Ranchers across the state, worried about tighter grazing restrictions if the sage grouse was included on the list, wanted hunting stopped completely. Hunting, however, has little impact on bird numbers. According to FWP game management bureau chief John Vore, department biologists collared about 1,300 adult sage grouse over the last 16 years. Only nine of those birds have been killed by hunters.

“The effects of hunting, at least in Montana, are very minimal,” Vore said.

Nonetheless, the state Fish and Wildlife Commission chose a conservative season structure with a two-bird bag limit instead of the more liberal four-bird limit recommended in the Montana management plan.

FWP says the sage grouse success story is one worth applauding, but it’s only one chapter in a continuing saga. The USFWS will again examine Montana’ sage grouse in 2020 for possible inclusion on the Endangered Species List.

The threat remains.

Here’s hoping the birds do, too.

Parker Heinlein is

at [email protected]