Johnson County ranchers, others work to help sage grouse
SUE MYERS Star-Tribune correspondent | Posted: Monday, December 5, 2005 12:00 am
BUFFALO - A community-based project to restore sage grouse habitat in northern Johnson County is drawing statewide attention, offering what some say is an alternative to recommendations that this high-profile bird should receive federal protection.
The project, which had been under study for some time, was brought to the forefront about a year ago when several landowners approached the Lake DeSmet Conservation District and the Buffalo Natural Resources Conservation Service office to see about including the enhancement of sage grouse habitat in their land management plans.
One of those landowners was Dave Fraley who, with his brother Dick, own and operate Fraley Land & Livestock on a large holding of deeded acres on Four Mile south of Buffalo.
"I'm a member of the Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts, and just felt it was time to get proactive on this. We already have good country for sage grouse, but thought we could make some improvements," Fraley said. "We would much rather do something ourselves to promote a healthier environment than to have to deal with them as an endangered species. We needed management assistance as well as some funding."
They got both.
Because restoration of sage grouse communities also means healthier habitat for other wildlife, a program was already being developed by the NRCS and the conservation district which would include input and financial support from sources including the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the Northeast Wyoming Sage Grouse Working Group, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the oil and gas industry, other conservation groups, federal and state entities as well as the landowners.
A list was made of best management practices which would not only benefit sage grouse, but would also be compatible for wildlife and agriculture. It includes conducting range site inventories, offering landscape designs and planning water development projects.
The plan also stresses the need to restore fragmented sagebrush stands, which are the main food source for sage grouse, and to protect the birds' strutting grounds. Sage hens return to the same leks year after year and are joined there by roosters who vie for their favors. The roosters and young grouse may seek other leks, but once a hen reaches maturity, it's committed to just one.
At the Fraley ranch, the plan calls for planting some dryland alfalfa and other forbs as well as chopping old sagebrush to make room for new growth. The work is being done with a Lawson meadow aerator donated to Game and Fish by Anadarko Petroleum at a cost of $42,000. In addition, six big pastures will be split by cross-fencing into 12 smaller units to facilitate grazing rotation, and water tanks will be modified to accommodate ramps for sage grouse.
"It's pretty intensive planning," Fraley said. "We started the actual work this fall and hopefully will get to the fencing this winter. We signed up for management on our whole place - a little over 14,000 acres - and hope to have it all finished up in six years. The end result will be good for our livestock operation as well as benefiting the grouse and other wildlife."
Another Four Mile rancher, Tom Lohse, has been involved in the sage grouse habitat restoration program for more than two years and has already seen the benefits to his ranching operation.
"We've drilled a new water well, put in a new pipeline to upgrade the old water system and have added more stock tanks with ramps. After pinpointing the critical sage grouse habitat areas, especially the strutting grounds, we now schedule our work to minimize any disturbance," Lohse said. "We knew we had a couple of active leks on the place, and I don't know if what we've done made a difference, but I located two more smaller leks this past spring."
The next phase is to move down along the river and bring in the Lawson aerator to knock down some of the old sagebrush and prepare the soil for planting. Sage grouse need all ages of sagebrush for feeding and protection, but also need a variety of forbs which draw insects and produce seeds that are vital to the diet of young chicks that cannot yet digest sagebrush.
The methane effect
Unlike Fraley, Lohse has some coal-bed methane activity in his area.
"We have a good working relationship with the company that's moved in," Lohse said, "and we can still keep our best management practice plan."
For example, Lohse will put in some fences to keep livestock away from the area drilling crews are working until they are finished and new plant growth on the reclaimed area is established.
Lohse also negotiated with the company to avoid discharging water onto the land there and, instead, pipe it to other locations. A concern had arisen as a result of a two-year study by a Montana State University entomologist that found the hundreds of ponds which have sprung up in northeastern Wyoming as a result of coal-bed methane activity provide excellent breeding grounds for the Culex tarsalis mosquito, carrier of West Nile virus.
The study was initiated after it was learned that sage grouse in the area were dying from the virus. The report said that neither the chemical makeup of the ponds nor the properties of coal or methane were a factor in the studies; rather, it was simply that the mosquitoes had more water for breeding.
On the other hand, the surveying and other preliminary field work done in conjunction with the coal-bed methane industry has provided additional information regarding the sage grouse. Dan Thiele, Game and Fish biologist at Buffalo, said 128 leks were identified in Johnson County last spring, about 40 more than in 2004.
"While some of this is due to better weather conditions (for the breeding ritual), the increased number is also the result of reports from surveyors working in the more remote areas," he said. "None of the leks were very large, most ranging around 15 males each."
The Northeast Wyoming Sage Grouse Working Group, which covers a larger area with its studies, identified 416 leks, most of which held six to 20 birds but a few containing up to 60.
Finding the birds
Before any program to restore and protect habitat can be effective, these established sage grouse communities need to be located and mapped. According Nikki Lohse, manager of the Lake DeSmet Conservation District, this is not a simple task.
Tom Maechtle of Sheridan, chairman of the Northeast Wyoming Sage Grouse Working Group, was hired to head up this job. He uses well-trained English setters equipped with telemetry collars to locate the birds and go on-point until he maps the spot with his global positioning system. He said his older dog will hold a point for up to 20 minutes, but he prefers to flush the birds out himself so he can get a better count. Maechtle also trained NRCS personnel and volunteers how to determine movement of the birds by identifying and following their scat.
Phil Gonzales, NRCS district conservationist, said this sage grouse habitat restoration project is the largest of its kind in Wyoming. Grazing management plans have been developed for 60,000 acres, with another 70,000 acres in the works, and there are applications for 70,000 additional acres. And about $1.4 million has been raised to meet the cost of implementing the plans.
The largest portion of this funding, nearly $840,000, came through NRCS itself, with private landowners contributing another $247,000, and the remainder coming from the other partner entities.
Gonzales said Fraley and Lohse are representative of other landowners who are realizing that establishing detailed land management plans not only benefits sage grouse, but it gives them the tools they need to make sound business plans and decisions.
"What the Lake DeSmet Conservation District and the Natural Resource Conservation Service in Buffalo have done is unique and unprecedented," said Bert Jellison, terrestrial habitat coordinator for Game and Fish in Sheridan. "They've tackled an issue involving a species petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Fixing this problem means the local community maintains control of their future."