Grouse Populations Nose Dive

The future of Washington’s sage and sharp-tailed grouse, once so plentiful throughout most of the East Side that settlers filled their wagons with the birds, may depend largely upon whether the Conservation Reserve Program is continued.

Populations of the birds are now precariously low, so low that the Fish and Wildlife Commission will decide next April whether to list them as “threatened” species.

Wildlife biologists Michelle J. Tirhi and David W. Hayes make clear in their 60-page-plus status reports on the two species that Douglas and Grant County land under the CRP program is responsible for the birds’ survival in some areas.

Once popular game birds, sage grouse and sharp-tails haven’t been hunted in the state since 1987. And they may never be hunted again, despite efforts to rebuild populations.

Middle-aged and elderly hunters remember pursuing the birds in Lincoln County. I recall getting up long before dawn and driving to leks just south of Wilbur and watching male sage grouse strut their stuff before seemingly disinterested hens. And I remember flushing sage grouse along Lords Valley Creek between Sprague and Harrington while hunting pheasants.

But sage grouse apparently no longer live in Lincoln County. Someday, maybe, they’ll return, but only if the Fish and Wildlife Department, in cooperation with landowners and public agencies, succeed in saving the remnant populations in Douglas County and on the Yakima Training Center in Kittitas and Yakima counties and are successful in re-establishing populations.

Fortunately, sharp-tails still live in Lincoln County, and if efforts to continue providing them with living space are successful, they may still be around for many years.

Why did the sharp-tail and sage grouse populations nose dive?

As for sharp-tails, the biologists say that, “Three of the major factors that contributed to the decline are still threats today: conversion to agriculture, conversion to pasture land and over-grazing.”

They say that “agricultural expansion, grazing and sagebrush control through burning, mechanical removal and chemical control severely degraded traditional sage grouse habitat.”

The biologists say that sharp-tailed grouse numbers have dropped from about 7,300 to only about 1,000 the last 27 years.

The birds are in eight scattered sub-populations in Douglas, Lincoln and Okanogan counties.

“Remaining sharp-tail habitat is severely fragmented and in poor condition, especially in Okanogan County, where winter habitat has been removed,” they say.

“The Lincoln County population is likely the most stable population outside the Colville Indian Reservation, with substantial ownership by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Bureau of Land Management.”

Lands enrolled in the CRP “appear to support the remaining sharp-tailed grouse subpopulations,” they report.

The CRP is a federal program that pays landowners who have highly erodable crop land to establish grass for a minimum of 10 years. It reduces erosion, establishes perennial vegetation and allows re-invasion of sagebrush and other bush species.

In Lincoln County, sharp-tails use CRP land for nesting, brood rearing, foraging and thermal and escape cover. In Douglas, sagebrush has reinvaded many CRP fields, which may have increased the quality of habitat for sharp-tails.

Only 900 to 1,000 sage grouse are living in the state. About 600 are in Douglas County and 300 to 400 are in Kittitas and Yakima counties. More than half of the sage grouse are in Douglas County.

The biologists say that habitat conditions in Douglas County have improved for sage grouse largely as a result of the CRP on private lands.

They contend in both reports that removal of CRP land could result in further declines of sage and sharp-tailed grouse. Contracts for thousands of acres of land now under the CRP program expire this year and the federal government denied CRP funding on most of the land.

“Although landowners are reapplying, the future status of these areas are uncertain,” the biologists say.

The state’s hunters long have known that upland game birds, as well as other wildlife, thrive on lands under the CRP program. Some of the best pheasant and partridge hunting is on those lands.

Now they and other Washington state residents know that the future of two of the state’s native game birds is dependent on the whims of politicians in the nation’s capitol.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact Fenton Roskelley by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 3814.