ARE SAGE GROUSE HUNTERS ENDANGERED?

Byline: Jim Matthews Special to the Daily News

California's brief sage grouse hunting season was Sept. 4 and 5 in Inyo, Mono and Lassen counties. Shooters who were lucky enough to draw a permit may end up being the state's last group to pursue these great game birds, and, by fall, may have become the last to track them anywhere in the West.

A number of petitions are being filed to list the species as either threatened or endangered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But many believe any proposed listings will be battled by state and federal agencies and livestock groups in court.

``Some environmental groups would like to use the sage grouse as the spotted owl of the sage brush, as a means of gaining land management control,'' said Clait Braun, owner of an environmental consulting firm called Grouse Inc. in Tucson, Arizona, and the former Avian Program resource manager for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. ``They are adamant to manage to western range lands for sage grouse and not grazing.'' Across their range, numbers of sage grouse have plummeted since the first population surveys were taken in the 1950s. The most recent estimates place the population at fewer than 150,000 birds - down from those early estimates that indicated 1 to 2 million birds lived in the West.

How critical is the problem?

On the fringes of sage grouse range, many populations are in jeopardy of becoming extinct and others have vanished altogether, said Braun, considered by many the preeminent authority on these prairie birds.

In Washington, there are just two isolated populations of fewer than 1,000 birds. The state has listed the sage grouse as threatened; a petition has been filed by the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance and the Biodiversity Legal Foundation to list the species federally in Washington. Alberta and Saskatchewan are home to fewer than 500 birds each. Fewer than 2,000 birds reside in North Dakota and South Dakota.

Closer to home, California's population of sage grouse - lovers of the Great Basin sagebrush ecotype - is estimated at nearly 5,000.

Likewise, Colorado and Utah have about 5,000 Gunnison sage grouse - a subspecies that is extinct in Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas and Oklahoma. A petition to list this subspecies as threatened was filed early this summer; those close to the issue think it will be listed before next fall's hunting season. Public and private land-use managers in Colorado and Utah are concerned any such listing of the Gunnison sage grouse would restrict how they conduct business; managers in other states with sage grouse, have similar anxieties.

Braun worked diligently with the Colorado Division of Wildlife to keep the bird from becoming listed, believing the money that will be wasted on litigation over the listing could be better spent on habitat conservation plans for individual populations and work to implement the plans immediately.

Braun said sage grouse populations are in jeopardy for a number of reasons. Livestock grazing and management of sagebrush habitats for cattle often are seen as the biggest threats.

In two conservation plan areas in Colorado, the state agency was able to turn around dramatic declines when the plans were implemented. Around Crawford, Colo., the number of birds jumped from around 100 adults to more than 300 birds in just five years, and in the Dove Creek area, the sage grouse numbers jumped from fewer than 100 birds to more than 200 in just two seasons. The Crawford plan called for massive removal of juniper that was encroaching into the sagebrush, brush beating (or mowing) to open up lek (areas for display and courtship behavior) and changes to cattle grazing. The Dove Creek plan saw positive results with the simple removal or reduction of cattle in the area, which allowed grass nesting cover to return.

``Yes, we can improve numbers in small populations and show results quickly, but it will take a multitude of plans and treatments to do the same thing on a larger scale,'' Braun said.

How likely is it that this will happen?

``Some environmental groups argue that the only way we'll get to do what we need to do is by having it listed,'' he said. Braun understands both sides of the issue. He's seen management plans - funded through hunter's license dollars - have a measurable impact on sage grouse numbers when implemented. Listed species often see state funding dry up, and more time and money frequently is spent in court by opponents and proponents than in the field on actually helping the birds.

In California, bird numbers have actually increased in the six northeastern counties where they reside - Lassen, Modoc, Siskiyou, Shasta, Plumas and Sierra. (Hunting is permitted only in Lassen County.) But in Inyo and Mono counties, cattle management practices on land owned by the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power have continued to slowly erode the sage grouse population.

A federal threatened listing would end - at least in the short term - all hunting for sage grouse, and such a listing could take place before next year.

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PHOTO (color) Hunting of sage grouse in California - and throughout the West - may soon become a thing of the past.

Photo courtesy of Department of Fish and Game