Montana Sage Grouse Hunters and Concerned Sportsman/woman-There are only a few days left for you to comment on the proposed closure of the sage grouse hunting season in Montana; the public comment period closes on Monday, 23 June 2014 at 5 PM Mountain Daylight Time. Here’s the web link to the comment page:
http://fwp.mt.gov/hunting/publicComments/2014/2014_2015proposedUplandGameBirdQuotasLimits.html At the May meeting of the MT Fish & Wildlife Commission, the commissioners responded positively to public comment AGAINST totally closing the sage grouse hunting season. In fact, the commissioners directly told Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) staff to actively solicit public comments for other options for the MT sage grouse hunting season. The commissioners clearly want FWP to consider the full spectrum of season options ranging from a total closure to no changes (maintain the status quo) while also considering other changes like different season dates and length (i.e. push back the opening or closing dates, or both), reductions in daily bag or possession limits, and closing different areas of the state. Here’s the web link to FWP’s press release soliciting public comment on the 2014 sage grouse season:
http://fwp.mt.gov/news/newsReleases/commission/nr_0150.html In meetings with individual commissioners, representatives of sportsman’s groups have all gotten a clear signal that the commissioners don’t want to totally close the sage grouse season. But without strong public opposition and thoughtful comment, the commission may well do just that. Below is a copy of the initial comment letter submitted by the Big Sky Upland Bird Association at the May commission meeting. Feel free to use those comments, and add your own personal thoughts – but please be courteous and polite. Thanks for your support of good science and opposition to bad politics!
May 20, 2014
RE: Proposal to Close All Hunting of Greater Sage-grouse in Montana
Dear Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commissioners:
It is with great concern and commitment that we write you today to share our position on the recommendation by FWP staff that sage-grouse hunting in Montana be suspended for 2014. Our association has been incorporated for over 25 years in Montana, helped create the first Upland Bird Habitat Enhancement Program, has showed up in Helena many times to champion science-based professional wildlife and habitat management, and our state agencies. Just as many times we have shown up to oppose ill-conceived or regressive anti-professional or natural resource legislation. Our members have served on upland bird CACs and PLPW committees, sage-grouse working groups, and tribal wildlife collaborations. So it is rare for us to strongly oppose a recommendation by FWP’s professional staff, but in this instance we must do so.
We feel the proposal to entirely close Montana’s 2014 sage-grouse hunting season lacks a rigorous or complete analysis of grouse population trends across Montana, violates FWP’s own triggers for harvest suspension described in the 2004 Montana Sage-grouse plan, preempts what we consider a positive new management decision to divide sage-grouse hunting into three zones across the state in 2014, and gains us nothing regarding the USFWS’ evaluation of Montana’s grouse conservation efforts in the context of the pending decision to list sage-grouse federally as “threatened.”
Greater Sage-Grouse Are Not Declining Across MontanaStating that sage-grouse populations as presently declining across Montana is factually inaccurate or incomplete in at least three ways. FWP staff in Helena did not have all the 2014 data when they advanced the closure proposal to the Commission on May 15 (much less, earlier when they had internal discussions deciding to do so). I’ve been fielding technicians to count sage-grouse intensively in southwest Montana every April since 1999, during which time we’ve conducted over 1000 lek counts using the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agency sage-grouse lek monitoring protocols. Our data has always been collected in coordination with the BLM and FWP and shared with them. We have always collected more lek data than the two agencies combined. Pooled, our data shows that the average lek size in Beaverhead/Madison counties from 2010-2013 was approximately 16 males. In 2014 this count increased to 23+ males. Of the 34 leks I presently have data for in southwest Montana (again, all the data has yet to be delivered to any central source including FWP in Helena), 24 leks have the same number of males or more than the surveys conducted 2010-2013 (with no increase in observer effort). Exactly 776 males were directly counted on these leks in 2014, a total higher than any previous year. We do not know the location of all active leks, and there is no means of effectively surveying hens or broods, so this data should be considered an index of trend, not total population size. Finally, southwest Montana shares its population with one of the densest sage-grouse populations known globally (in the vicinity of Dubois, ID) which undoubtedly contributes resiliency to our population in this corner of the state. In fact it is known that Idaho-hatched sage-grouse are repeatedly part of Montana’s bag in places like Big Sheep Basin west of Lima, MT. Clearly the sage-grouse population in southwest Montana does not meet the trigger for season closure (having never met three consecutive years of population 45% or more below long-term average) as outlined in the 2004 Montana Sage-grouse Conservation plan.
Why possibly are sage-grouse doing better in southwest Montana over the past several years? Foremost, birds here have not been subjected to West Nile virus due to high elevation, we are not experiencing rapid habitat fragmentation from energy development or sod busting, and we have not had exceptionally poor June weather impacting hatch conditions. And arguably, hunter harvest has not impacted Montana’s sage-grouse populations here (or anywhere in Montana).
The Commission Should Allow Conservative and Scientifically Sustainable Grouse Harvest
As such, we request the Commission not close the sage-grouse hunting season at least in southwest Montana. Instead we support the Commission’s recent proposal to divide sage-grouse range in Montana into three or more hunting districts, analyze each hunting district independently, and make geographic and scale-appropriate adaptive harvest adjustments to avoid additive mortality to populations which may be declining for other reasons.
We protest any proposal to entirely close sage-grouse hunting seasons where sustainable harvest is clearly possible. Once you lose any hunting season, they are much more difficult to re-open due to opposition by industry and/or preservationists. And there are several ways to restrict harvest without entirely closing the season statewide. For example, attached is a table summarizing how other Western states manage sage-grouse harvest.
2013 Harvest Proposed? 2013 Season Length Approx. Opening Date 2013 Regional Closures? Bag/Possession Special TermsCalifornia Yes 2 days Sept. 14 Y 2 per season Limited permits
Colorado Yes 2-7 days Sept. 14 Y 2day/4 aggregate
Oregon Yes 9 days Sept. 7 Y 2 per season Limited permits
Utah Yes 9 days Sept. 13 Y 2 per season Limited permits
Nevada Yes 2-15 days Sept. 25 Y 2day/4 aggregate Residents only
Wyoming Yes 10 days Sept. 21 Y 2day/4 aggregate
Idaho Yes 7 days Sept. 21 Y 1day/2 aggregate
Montana Yes 60 days Sept. 1 West of Divide 2day/4 aggregate
This table clearly illustrates that Montana’s 2013 season is an outlier compared to the surrounding states where hunting still occurs, in that it is longer at 60 days and starts earlier than any other state. Long seasons are problematic because they often overlap with other game seasons, allowing incidental take during, for example, rifle pronghorn and elk hunting. Also early seasons have been discouraged in other states because of the perception that more hens-with-broods are shot near irrigated fields, stock ponds, and road edges where they seek succulent vegetation and insects during high temperatures and prior to hard frosts which kills most forbs and insects. Reproductively successful hens are the most important part of sage-grouse populations.
To avoid both problems, one option the Commission might consider is shortening the 2014 sage-grouse season by starting it later and ending it sooner, for example by opening on September 13 for 30 days with no change in bag/possession. This would allow time for grouse to disperse from water, and would preempt virtually all incidental harvest during the rifle big game seasons. Dedicated sage-grouse hunters could still go afield in some or all of the state for a world class upland bird hunting experience, and would still be willing to contribute financially to FWP’s sage-grouse management.
The Federal Analysis of HarvestThe U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been processing petitions to add Greater Sage-grouse to the federal Endangered Species list since 1998. During that time they’ve undertaken multiple efforts to clarify how states would be evaluated in terms of their own efforts to conserve sage-grouse. In 2003 they published the
Policy for Evaluating Conservation Efforts When Making Listing Decisions, and it is unlikely that eliminating harvest would be considered an effective conservation action if harvest had never been shown to be contributing to declines. In 2013 a workshop of recognized sage-grouse experts convened by the USFWS published a
Conservation Objectives report on sage-grouse rangewide, and ranked the threat posed by recreational harvest of sage-grouse specifically across Montana as “low.” Ranked higher were sod busting, energy development, and invasive plants and associated wildfire.
In closing, Montana has the capacity to remain a stronghold of Greater Sage-grouse, as well as a world class hunting destination. Good science combined with the American model of wildlife management and a century-long partnership with hunters is the cornerstone of this success. Please do not in haste abandon these principles and reasons for your success to politics or other pressures.
Regards,
Ben Deeble, president
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) Conservation Objectives: Final Report. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Denver, CO. February 2013.
