Surveys indicate the sage grouse may be functionally extinct in North Dakota

To say that sage grouse now are extinct in western North Dakota might be stretching things but only slightly after surveys of the leks the birds communal mating grounds this spring failed to find a single male on the mating grounds a Battle and Fish Department biologist says This was the first year that state and federal surveyors failed to count a single male sage grouse in Bowman County the last place in western North Dakota with a remnant population of the beleaguered grouse species disclosed Jesse Kolar the Championship and Fish Department s upland meeting management supervisor in Dickinson Zero Nada None They did count one female Kolar says I wouldn t say they re extinct from North Dakota but I do think you could argue they re functionally extinct Kolar explained I don t think they re going to bounce back from as low as they are right now to any meaningful numbers Unless of lesson the western grouse species has a few really triumphant production years in adjacent areas of South Dakota and Montana which hasn t been the latest trend Kolar disclosed The decline in North Dakota s sage grouse population dates back as far as the s Kolar says but the downtrend worsened in or when West Nile virus was approved in the species That was a substantial factor and possibly the straw that broke the camel s back he stated Once our lek count numbers dipped below males we ve never seen consistent rebounds in the population North Dakota s last sage grouse season was in A variety of factors are behind the decline Kolar says including loss of the Big Sagebrush species Artemisia tridentanta upon which the birds rely rangeland conversion agriculture and potency advancement Ideally sage grouse prefer - to -square-mile tracts of Big Sagebrush habitat that is relatively undisturbed Kolar says In North Dakota we haven t had that for several years he mentioned That s why I sometimes say it s surprising they held on for as long as they have The frustrating part Kolar says is there s no single cause behind the species disappearance from the western North Dakota landscape If it were just vitality growth we could go and combat potency advancement in a part of their range and try to set up a core where we didn t have power growth Kolar mentioned Or if it were just agricultural advance we could do habitat easements and find a big enough core where we could really protect it from agricultural conversion But no it s an all of the above scenario In an effort to jumpstart the population the Encounter and Fish Department translocated sage grouse from Wyoming from to The department translocated sage grouse males females and chicks during the four-year effort We tried a lot of different things spent a lot of money trying to supplement the population and unfortunately none of that worked commented Bill Haase wildlife chief for the North Dakota Match and Fish Department From a low of five male sage grouse in the count rebounded to in Kolar says still far below the previous high of males in That was followed by in and steady declines after he commented The rebound in could be due at least in part to the department s translocations Kolar says but surveyors didn t see several males with leg bands during the spring lek surveys which would have indicated Wyoming birds Related Articles Scheels to open Blaine store with Ferris wheel aquarium toys and more How to watch two meteor showers peak together in late July Danger of West Nile virus increasing early this Minnesota summer Here s what to know Zebra mussel larvae substantiated in Washington County lakes Skywatch The swan of summer is flying high It s a bit unclear as to what caused the rebound especially since areas outside of our translocation area also rebounded Kolar disclosed Ultimately the expensive translocations were not feasible to continue long-term and we saw an immediate decline following the translocation project further supporting the futility of continuing translocation efforts Given the declines Competition and Fish isn t investing as much effort into sage grouse counts as it did years ago The department used to count all historic leks two to three times every spring Kolar says but multiple of those hadn t had sage grouse for more than years and so efforts in those areas were discontinued I ve done searches from the air to see if any of those have re-ignited but searches have not turned up any grouse that we were not finding from the ground Kolar stated It s likely that there were a handful of sage grouse males remaining in North Dakota that we did not detect but not likely that we re missing enough to change the story of a decline toward extirpation from the state