Counting your chickens: Lek surveys check sage grouse population numbers

Sunrise was cold and windy north of Farson last Sunday. Wyoming Game and Fish Game Warden Justin Dodd scanned the sagebrush through his binoculars.

"There they are," he said, catching sight of white feathers.

Roughly 20 sage grouse slowly moved around the patch of land. A lone antelope stood nearby, but he and the birds didn't seem to mind each other. Still, within half an hour, most of the sage grouse had either flown away or hidden themselves. But the fact there were birds present was a good sign, if a little surprising.

"Part of the conditions for checking these leks is the weather conditions have to be almost perfect," Dodd explained.

When game wardens check a sage grouse lek - the locations where sage grouse gather in the spring to mate - the ideal weather includes no precipitation, winds less than 10 miles per hour, and no other wildlife being nearby. Good weather allows game wardens to be confident they're seeing the maximum amount of sage grouse using the lek. When conditions aren't optimal, game wardens may have to return to the location multiple times to find a day with a good turnout.

Thankfully, Dodd had already been to the lek north of Farson and been able to count the birds under more ideal conditions, so the windy morning wouldn't affect his lek survey results.

Every year from mid-March to mid-May, the Game and Fish Department conducts sage grouse lek surveys. During this time frame, male sage grouse gather at these locations to perform a song and dance mating ritual, Dodd explained. The males compete to see who will get the girl by inflating balloon-like sacs on their chests, which they jiggle around.

"It's kind of weird," Dodd said. "I don't think it's very attractive but apparently the female sage grouse think it's pretty attractive."

During this activity, male sage grouse also make a unique sound which Dodd described as sounding like water droplets. He said if you heard the sound you might be confused and not know what it is right away. The unique noise is something Dodd finds especially interesting about the sage grouse's ritual.

Another aspect of the mating ritual is it only happens at sunrise and the birds are typically gone within a few hours. This means Game and Fish employees conducting surveys at the leks usually have to get up early and frequently have to travel to the leks while the birds are still there.

Lek locations have been identified and checked by Game and Fish for years. Many of them are spots sage grouse have been returning to each year for many decades. For example, the lek north of Farson was discovered back in the 1980s, Dodd said. Even with the established leks, Game and Fish employees still discover new leks on occasion or find places where leks have shifted location.

While there are hundreds of lek locations throughout the state, Dodd estimated the majority of them are in Southwest Wyoming. The state is divided into seven Game and Fish regions, with the Green River region extending down to Baggs and over to Cokeville.

"I think just in our region we've got three or four hundred leks," he said.

Part of the reason this section of the state has so many sage grouse is because of the terrain and the wide stretches of land filled with sagebrush, which is where the birds tend to live.

"This is kind of the sagebrush capital of the world, so it typically tends to lend a pretty good sage grouse habitat," Dodd said. "I know there's some leks in this part of the state where you can show up and there might be close to 100 birds on them."

The lek surveys the Game and Fish Department conducts each year serve as a way to check on how many sage grouse are in the state. The surveys can either be simple lek surveys or count surveys, according to Dodd.

For a basic lek survey, a lek is only visited one time as a way to verify whether or not the lek is still in use. If there are birds, the Game and Fish employee can confirm the lek is active. If there aren't birds when the employee gets there, they can check for sign of birds using the location, such as fresh scat or feathers. These surveys are also used to determine if a lek is no longer being used, Dodd explained, since the location needs to be checked for roughly 10 years to be declared inactive.

Count surveys are more complicated and time consuming, according to Dodd, because they involve visiting a lek location at least three times, counting the birds, and taking an average of how many birds are showing up. Count surveys are the type where the weather matters, because if conditions aren't optimal and no birds are present, the employee will have to return another time.

Lek surveys are typically conducted by game wardens, like Dodd, or by Game and Fish biologists. However, Dodd said other Game and Fish employees sometimes volunteer to help with surveys because they find it fun and interesting to go out and see the birds. While conducting lek surveys is an exciting part of the job, it's also a serious responsibility each year since the survey results determine other decisions.

"It's just kind of a way to help us gauge a rough estimate of how many birds are in the landscape and then that in turn helps us decide how healthy the population is," Dodd explained.

Game and Fish employees continually monitor the number of various wildlife throughout the state. Dodd said the department also counts the number of big game species like elk, deer and antelope in the fall and winter to get a "snapshot" of the population. Animal populations can decline due to both hunting and natural factors like depredation and harsh winters. Monitoring populations can help the Game and Fish department ensure animal populations don't decline too drastically, which is part of their responsibility as a conservation agency.

Monitoring the sage grouse population influences decisions like how many licenses can be sold for hunting in the fall.

Currently sage grouse hunting season is in September, and anyone can purchase a game bird license and conservation stamp in order to hunt, but hunters are limited to killing two birds per day and only having four birds in possession at any given time.

Sage grouse population, and their potential for protection under the endangered species act, is also frequently a topic of conversation when it comes to industries wanting to develop lands including sage grouse habitat.

For Dodd and other Game and Fish game wardens, the yearly lek surveys are primarily a way to ensure sage grouse are conserved throughout the state.

 "We can just make sure that population is staying healthy and that there could be sage grouse around for the next 100, 200 years," Dodd said.

 

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