Grouse Nearly Homeless On The Range

Outside of strongholds in Montana and Wyoming, prairie grouse, particularly sage grouse, continue to struggle for a home on the range the West.

Washington closed sage grouse hunting in the 1980s. Oregon went to a controlled hunt on sage grouse years ago. Last year, about 1,000 tags were offered for a five-day hunt. Even before wild fires had decimated sagebrush habitat in southeastern Idaho last month, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission had cut back on sage grouse hunting to protect the dwindling desert bird.

Sage grouse populations may be depleted as much as 90 percent in some areas, especially in the Big Desert between Arco and American Falls, wildlife biologists said.

Loss of habitat and low reproductive rates have combined to thin grouse numbers across the West.

“We’re talking about a bird that has the reproduction capacity of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. They just don’t make babies very well,” Fish and Game biologist Jack Connelly told the commission.

“Basically we believe hunting has little impact,” said Tom Hemker, Idaho Fish and Game Department upland bird manager. “The major factors are habitat and weather. We’ve lost a lot of habitat in the past fifteen years, and there’s not much hope in replacing it.”

In eastern and most of southern Idaho, the season was reduced to seven days. It ended Friday.

“We wanted to be conservative and, hopefully, this is enough,” Commissioner Roy Brown of Soda Springs said. “We don’t want to get our necks hanging out there and have these birds be declared threatened or endangered.”

A 23-day season is set for Owyhee County.

Sharp-tailed grouse are holding on slightly better in southern Idaho.