The Sage Grouse War

by Doug Crowe
Wednesday, December 26, 2007 11:52 AM MST

A Sage Grouse War is being waged throughout the West in general, and Wyoming in particular.

The major combatants in this dust-up are the "rape and scrape boys" in one line of trenches and the "bunny huggers" in another. The R&S crowd would have us believe the grouse never had it so good; they are roosting on gas wells and strutting on mine spoils.

The B-Hers insist the poor things are on the brink of extinction and will vanish forever from planet Earth if anyone even sneezes.

Both sides have hired a cadre of mercenaries and "spin doctors" to bolster their claims and sell their perspective. We, The Great Unwashed Masses, are left trying to peer through this "fog of war" and sort it all out.

So what do we really know?

For one thing, we know that an incredibly ignorant neo-con worshiping political appointee in the Department of the Interior managed to intimidate the Fish & Wildlife Service and edit scientific conclusions to keep sage grouse from having a fair hearing in an earlier consideration of their status.

Of course, these gestapo tactics eventually came to light and a U.S. District Court judge in Idaho ruled that because of this, the Fish & Wildlife Service must reconsider its earlier decision to deny federal protection to the sage grouse.

I find it astounding that our junior senator has publicly stated his "disappointment in the Idaho District Court ruling to reconsider listing sage grouse as endangered."

I would think in view of the circumstances, any fair-minded citizen, especially one representing the "Equality State," would, regardless of his personal opinion on the matter, welcome review of a decision known to be based upon coercion and manipulated information.

We also know there are two species of sage grouse. The Gunnison sage grouse (Centrocercus minimus) is not found here. These birds exist only in a few isolated populations scattered through parts of southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah.

The other, and much larger species, the greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), is found mainly in Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Nevada.

Both species probably occupy less than 60 percent of their former range. Population numbers are difficult to obtain for either species. However, it is likely that fewer than 2,000 Gunnison sage grouse are extant today.

Because greater sage grouse are much more widely distributed than their smaller cousins, it is extremely difficult to compile an accurate estimate of their numbers. There is, however, local anecdotal evidence of previous abundance.

In October of 1886, the naturalist George B. Grinnell camped just below a high bluff on the border of Bates Hole (about 25 miles southeast of Casper) and wrote the following in his journal:

"I saw great numbers of these birds just after sunrise flying over my camp to the little spring which oozed out of the bluff 200 yards away. Looking up from the tent at the edge of the bluff above us, we could see projecting over it the heads of hundreds of birds, and as those standing there took flight, others stepped forward to occupy their places.

“The number of grouse which flew over the camp reminded me of the old-time flights of passenger pigeons that I used to see when a boy. Before long the narrow valley where the water was, was a moving mass of gray. I have no means whatever of estimating the number of birds which I saw, but there must have been thousands of them."

My question is this: Has anyone seen anything even approaching this around here lately?

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