Biologists, volunteers keep tabs on bird's breeding grounds
CARA EASTWOOD Wyoming Tribune-Eagle | Posted: Sunday, May 7, 2006 12:00 am
LARAMIE - The sky is still inky black when Bob Lanka, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's wildlife management coordinator in Laramie, loads up and hits the road.
To see sage grouse in their spectacular springtime mating rituals, Lanka and other Game and Fish staff and wildlife biologists rise in the wee hours to make it to the leks on time.
"We've got to be there a half-hour before sunrise," Lanka says as he pulls away from the regional office at 4:45 a.m. and guides his truck onto a dark ribbon of Interstate 80.
The lek, or breeding ground, that Lanka is heading toward is about an hour northwest of Laramie - 40 minutes on the highway, and 20 minutes on jaw-rattling two-track dirt roads. His main goal is to check to see whether there is activity on the leks in his region - not whether the population of grouse is up or down.
About a dozen other biologists, volunteers and land agency staff are doing the same thing in this region for the next few weeks. Multiply that by the eight Game and Fish regions in Wyoming, and it amounts to about 100 people sacrificing sleep to help check on sage grouse this spring.
Statewide, four biologists are conducting scientific counts of the birds, Lanka says. Between April 1 and May 7, they will visit a series of leks three or four times at seven- to 10-day intervals to try to determine population figures.
"Hopefully they will catch the most number of birds on one of the days," he says. "You never know when an eagle might fly over and scatter all of them so you can't see any birds."
The monitoring is a coordinated effort that involves agencies including the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and outside groups such as the Audubon Society. It's part of the Wyoming greater sage grouse conservation plan that is designed to keep the birds off the endangered species list. The plan calls for the creation of eight working groups to develop local management plans and projects to benefit the sage grouse.
So far this year, the data on grouse populations and lek activity looks good, Lanka says.
In January 2005, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to list the sage grouse as endangered because population decline had slowed and plenty of habitat still exists in the West. The efforts of sage grouse working groups have been credited with helping prevent the listing of the bird.
Alison Holloran, conservation programs manager for Audubon Wyoming, studied sage grouse in the Pinedale Anticline area for her master's thesis at the University of Wyoming and continues to perform surveys for Game and Fish.
"I look at it every year as a rite of passage for the spring," she says. "These birds stick it out here all winter long, and just to see them back out on the leks is really nice."
After leaving the highway, Lanka crosses onto dirt roads on a section of Game and Fish property that borders a private ranch that contains several sage grouse leks.
He drives through multiple gates, across cattle guards, up and down hills and through wide meadows of gnawed sagebrush. At a spot near a wide, flat area, Lanka stops the truck and steps outside.
"Oh yeah, they're here," he says softly.
Although the birds aren't visible yet in the still-early morning, a soft sound like the pouring of milk from a plastic jug - boink, boink, boink boink - indicates their presence.
The sound comes from the inflating and deflating of the air sacs that the male grouse use to impress the females. Although it's soft, the sound carries for more than a mile.
Lanka peers through his binoculars for a rough count.
"There must be 40 birds out there," he whispers.
Just after 6 a.m., the sun works its way across the horizon, and the birds' forms come into focus. With air sacs inflated, the males are the size of large beach balls with long tail feathers that stick out an additional several inches. They strut slowly around the lek, looking like beefed-up bodybuilders.
The female birds are much smaller, with camouflage colors that are more difficult to see. They don't strut like the males, nor do they have bright white chests.
Suddenly, an ominous black form appears several feet in front of the truck, flying low and fast toward the lek.
The grouse suddenly start to squawk and scatter for cover - a young golden eagle is coming.
As it reaches the lek, the raptor dives once directly above a grouse and then seems to disappear.
All is quiet for a few moments, and then the male grouse start to reappear - first one, then two and a few more.
Eventually, about half the original number of grouse are back out on the lek, strutting their stuff on the vulnerable, open plain.
But the eagle hasn't left yet.
After waiting for the grouse to give in to their instinctive desire to put on a breeding display, the eagle appears again, and this time swoops down and catches a grouse.
"Well, there you have it," Lanka says. "Wildlife at work."
On the way to a second lek, Lanka hikes to the top of a hill to get a better view of the terrain. This lek is empty, but Lanka hears grouse in another direction.
About a mile away is a small flat spot where more than 60 birds are involved in the mating dance as snow starts to fall.
"I count 51 males and 12 females," Lanka says.
After returning to the office later in the day, it turns out that the second lek was previously unrecorded - a new discovery.
Although it's too soon to arrive at any conclusions about this year's sage grouse population numbers, Lanka says so far the data look pretty good.
"In the last three or four years, we're finding activity on leks that we haven't seen active in years," he says.
Drought, habitat quality and predation are among many factors that can affect grouse reproduction and survival rates from year to year.