# FWP considers halving sage grouse season



## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

Story available at http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles ... grouse.txt

Published on Thursday, May 29, 2008.
Last modified on 5/29/2008 at 1:05 am

*FWP considers halving sage grouse season*
By BRETT FRENCH
Of The Gazette Staff

Concern at the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission that West Nile virus is hurting sage grouse populations has prompted the agency to offer a reduction in the length of the fall hunting season for the birds.

The commission is taking public comment on leaving the sage grouse season 62 days long, opening on Sept. 1 and closing on Nov. 1, or cutting the season in half to 31 days running from Sept. 1 to Oct. 1.

The deadline for public comment is June 27. The commission is scheduled to take final action on upland game bird seasons at its July 17 meeting in Helena.

West Nile virus is transmitted by mosquitoes.

Although some environmentalists have called for reducing or halting hunting to help preserve sage grouse, studies by graduate students in the Roundup area found very low sage grouse mortality due to hunters, according to Jay Newell, an FWP wildlife biologist from Roundup. In four years of the study, only five banded birds were ever returned to the agency, he said.

"The bottom line was there was very little effect from hunting," Newell said.

Sage grouse numbers were down across the greater Billings area according to surveys of the bird's mating grounds this spring. Fish, Wildlife and Park's management Region 5 includes sage grouse populations in Carbon, Yellowstone, Musselshell and Golden Valley counties. The counts are done in April.

"Some areas were worse than others," Newell said.

Yellowstone County saw a drop of 44 percent, counts were down 30 percent in Musselshell County, 9 percent in Golden Valley and about 12 percent in Carbon County. The figures are based on counts at leks that have had 10 or more years of data. Leks are sage grouse dancing grounds where females pick male mates. Averaged out, the counts on grounds with 10 years or more of data are down 20 percent across the region, which is within the bird's normal population fluctuation, Newell said.

"I was a little bit surprised because this spring we had better conditions than last year early in the season," he said.

West Nile could be partially responsible for the decline in sage grouse numbers in Region 5, Newell said.

"That is possible in the areas where we were down the most, in Yellowstone and Musselshell counties," he said. "We only found West Nile Virus in Musselshell and Golden Valley counties because we were doing studies there."

Nationwide, groups are worried that the greater sage grouse's population is in dire trouble due to a loss of habitat related to wildfires, oil and gas development and increased recreational use of public lands. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service received three petitions to list the greater sage-grouse as threatened or endangered throughout its range. As a result, the agency has undertaken a status review. A public comment period ended Tuesday.

"If the sage grouse does get listed it will have dramatic impacts on everything we do," Gene Terland, director of the Bureau of Land Management's Montana office, told a gathering last week.

Newell said loss of the bird's habitat is also being seen on private lands in his area.

"There's gotten to be a fair amount of pressure on sagebrush in this area," he said.

He noted that about 10,000 acres of sagebrush habitat was plowed under in part of his area while 3,000 acres in a portion of Golden Valley County fell under the plow last year. Part of it could be due to record prices for wheat.

"We're seeing kind of an increase in farming activity in recent years," Newell said. "Guys can sell ground for a little bit more if it's broken, instead of grazing land, even though it doesn't grow much."

Comments on the state's sage grouse season can be made by e-mailing [email protected], or writing to FWP - Wildlife Division, Attn: Public Comment, POB 200701, Helena, MT 59620-0701.

Contact Brett French at [email protected] or at 657-1387.


----------

