State Land Gets Grouse Boost

The Colville Indian Reservation, which holds the largest remaining concentration of sharp-tailed grouse in Washington, is giving up a dozen of the prairie grouse this month to help seed flocks on state land.

The grouse were captured in traps as they congregated at a traditional spring breeding site.

Mike Schroeder, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department prairie grouse researcher, later released the birds at the Scotch Creek Wildlife Area in Okanogan County.

Washington has listed the sharp-tailed grouse as well as the sage grouse as state threatened species.

Only about 1,000 of these native prairie grouse are left in Washington, primarily because of habitat degradation. Roughly 400 of these birds are on the Colville Reservation, said tribal biologist Maureen Murphy.

The state and the tribes have been boosting sharptails using Bonneville Power Administration funds to mitigate for wildlife losses caused by Grand Coulee Dam.

Securing the land and re-establishing native grasses and shrubs on the 9,000-acre Scotch Creek Wildlife Area northwest of Omak is part of the plan, Schroeder said.

Bringing birds from the reservation will give a genetic boost to the remnant sharp-tailed population on the wildlife area, he said.

State an tribal biologists attached radio transmitters to the captured birds before they were released to evaluate the birds’ movements.