Shoshone Basin Sees Returning Population Of Sharptail Grouse

Native Columbian sharptail grouse which disappeared in south-central Idaho more than 70 years ago are back, largely because of a federal set-aside program for farmland, Idaho Fish and Game officials say.

Upland game bird manager Tom Hemker said biologists found another grouse lek in the Shoshone Basin this spring, a strong indication they have returned to stay.

Leks are well-defined breeding areas where sharptails perform their spring dance rituals.

Fish and Game has moved sharptails from southeastern Idaho to Shoshone Basin at the rate of about 60 birds annually for several years. Hemker said they are plentiful in the southeastern corner, with hunters taking about 10,000 grouse a year there through most of the 1990s.

Still, no sharptails are captured from leks with fewer than 15 birds and no more than 20 percent of any single population is caught and moved.

Idaho has more Columbian sharptails than any other state. The number has grown dramatically with the Conservation Reserve Program. It paid farmers of erodible land to plant that property in permanent cover 10 years ago.

That land is an important cover for wildlife, such as game birds.

Although Congress held on to the concept of the program in its last session, lucrative grain prices are coaxing many farmers to drop out of the program when their contracts expire.

Hemker said the real long-term survival of sharptail and sage grouse is habitat improvement.