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Wednesday, February 1, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Helpingpthepgreatp
sagepgrouseptop
survive
Who would ever have
thought the once-huge
populations of the king of
Oregon’s Great Sagebrush
Sea, the greater sage grouse,
would suddenly begin to
vanish from its ancient
domain, and be considered
a candidate for listing as an
Endangered Species?
What happened to cause
this terrible decline? That
is what wildlife biologists,
range managers, politicians,
birders, game-bird hunters
and a lot of other people
would like to know.
There were a few clues
here and there when the first
reports came from a wildlife
biologist at Oregon State
University. But when con-
cerned field biologists began
to look around them one
huge factor became obvious:
habitat destruction.
From 1988 to 1993, wild-
life biologist Jan Hanf and a
team of researchers from the
Prineville BLM office con-
ducted a sage grouse study
on BLM lands that included
the Millican ATV trails.
As the study progressed it
became all too obvious that
trails used by ATVs ran
right through a variety of
sage grouse communities
which included ideal nesting
habitat.
It took time, and a lot of
political mumbo-jumbo, but
finally Hanf and her fellow
researchers found a sound
scientific and political base
with which to close off use
of the Millican ATV play-
grounds and allow sage
grouse to have their land
back.
Recently, East Cascades
Audubon Society (ECAS)
members discovered other
factors that may be affect-
ing sage grouse populations
— like West Nile Virus
(WNV).
WNV has been previ-
ously documented in the
sage-steppe of eastern
Deschutes County, and one
human case was documented
in 2016, while one or more
avian cases were confirmed
in the Wildhorse Hunt Unit
in years past. But no infor-
mation has been collected on
mosquito vectors (60 pos-
sible species) present on the
High Desert.
Testing on stock water,
dugout playa water storage
areas, guzzlers, and other
water sources could be done
to see if WNV is present in
levels which might inhibit
grouse recovery. Some
researchers feel that water
sources concentrate grouse
and carriers, and possi-
bly serve as sites for WNV
transmission. It seems that
with newer modalities such
as eDNA there is an oppor-
tunity to determine whether
these water sources benefit
or harm sage grouse repro-
duction and welfare.
WNV testing could also
be conducted on wings sub-
mitted by hunters at check
stations.
ECAS also considered
predators, asking: Do open
water sources serve as preda-
tor sinks for grouse? Ravens
are seen utilizing water
sources, including guzzlers,
in summer — could their
predation on chicks be sig-
nificant? What is the role
of hunter harvest in the low
population of sage grouse,
and what about poaching?
All these concerns boil
down to one huge factor
that’s slipped past range
managers and wildlife biol-
ogists: The onslaught of
managing the Great Sandy
Desert for cows that began
in the ’80s, and not tak-
ing into consideration the
impact on sage grouse.
Tens of thousands of
acres of native sagebrush,
including Silver Sage,
Artemisia cana — a plant
that sage grouse cannot
get along without — was
destroyed and replaced with
non-native grasses and the
land made into grazing pas-
tures. The land was sprayed
with herbicides by the BLM
and replaced by grasses for
cows, which drove the sage
grouse out to the fringes;
they’ve been literally put
out to pasture, which has left
them no place to safely nest.
Perhaps it was all too
easy to forget that one part
of any ecosystem affects
another part — removal of
sagebrush allowed increased
predation by ravens and
other grouse-eaters, caused
the birds to crowd into what
habitat was left, and perhaps
increased the risks of WNV
infection. While the playas
that became water troughs
for cows also became habitat
for mosquitoes that helped
spread WNV.
All these factors have
made it absolutely necessary
that land managers collect
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PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
Sage grouse males dancing in a “lek” to attract females, who will lay
more eggs and hopefully increase Oregon’s sage grouse numbers.
every piece of data they can
to make wise decisions for
the future, and the Adopt-
a-Lek program is supplying
much of that missing data.
If you would like to get
involved in helping to find
out what’s going on, this
is your Big Chance. Target
count periods are March 18
through April 1, then April
2-15, and lastly April 16-30.
Adopt-a-Lek is not for
the weak-at-heart — in some
places the going is rough —
but for those who take part
there are rewards beyond
description. Right off the
bat volunteers will get to see
parts of Oregon most people
just dream about and often
can be heard saying, “Boy!
I’d like to go there some
day!”
A “lek” is a large por-
tion of wildlands located
in the sagebrush country
of Oregon’s “Great Sandy
Desert” where male sage
grouse gather in spring to
shake their fannies at their
female counterparts — and
each other — and literally
get into the mating game.
Most volunteer lek-look-
ers park their vans, pick-
ups, campers and pitch their
tents far enough from the lek
to see the individual birds
clearly, but not be so close
as to interfere with the danc-
ing and strutting. The whole
idea is to count noses — or
in this case, beaks — and see
what’s going on.
The program is staffed
by more than 50 dedicated
volunteers. Volunteers drive
rugged roads to establish
isolated, primitive camp-
sites, most without cell
phone coverage, no weather
radar information, or coffee
shops. Some of the leks may
require volunteers do a little
hiking in the freezing dawn
temperatures in order to get
an accurate count.
The volunteers receive
lek count protocol training
See SAGE GROUSE on page 18