Lower Bag Limits Won't Save Our Sharptails
Craig Koshyk
Joe Schmutz recently wrote an interesting article about the decline of sharp-tail grouse numbers in his home province of Saskatchewan. Joe was kind enough to give me permission to share it on my blog. Thanks Joe!
In 2013, the Ministry of Environment responded to declining sharp-tail grouse numbers by reducing the daily bag limit from 3 to 2. There was a time when the grouse were so numerous they were taken for subsistence without a bag limit.
Then, in 1985, the existing limit of 5 was reduced
to 3; now 2. If this trend continued in a straight line, the limit would
be 1 in a dozen years and sharp-tail hunting closed in 2040. What would
it take to reverse that trend? When the Ministry announced the reduced
bag limit, they called on hunters, naturalists and landowners to report
observations. Of course, isolated observations only go so far. What
grouse need most is action.
Having hunted sharp-tails,
and other upland birds in Saskatchewan for many years, I believe that
severe winters and wet and cold weather during early summer brood
rearing can cause ups and down in grouse numbers. But, I've also
observed loss of habitat that is always a down. I decided in 2013 to
respond to the Ministry's call and record number of hours hunted, grouse
seen and bagged, GPS locations and food found in the grouse's crops. I
have hunted grouse in various parts of parkland edge (northern
grain-belt) in the western half of the province. In good years, I've
found grouse in decent numbers in small grassland patches such as
abandoned farmsteads, shelter belts and sloughs surrounded by
cultivation, as long as larger grassland areas were nearby. The large
grasslands held grouse more reliably and that is where I went in 2013,
to community pastures.
In 14 hunting forays
over 7 days and out of 20 hrs hunted with 2-5 dogs, 1 saw 137 flushes, 7
per hr. Twenty of these birds, I figured, had landed and were flushed a
second time. This left 117 individuals of which I bagged 12, 10%. I
hunted over new areas each time and likely encountered different
individuals. The age ratio was 4 adults and 8 juveniles. l used Large
Munsterlander dogs, a versatile breed with medium range and speed. I
estimated area covered by observing that the dogs covered approximately 150 meters on either side of me. This yielded a density of 9.5 grouse/km2.
A more detailed report has been submitted to Nature Saskatchewan's
journal, the Bluejay.
As the Ministry's press release
rightly states, wide research had been done on sharp-tailed grouse -
Saskatchewan's provincial bird. The last detailed studies were by Wayne Pepper and Adam Schmidt decades ago. Surveys done by
conservation officers remain largely unanalyzed. My calculated 9.5
grouse/ km2 was among the highest densities I could find anywhere. It
proved to me what I suspected all along. When you give the grouse the
habitat they need, they do just fine. So, what habitat do they need?
The
recently eaten foods found in the crops of grouse also tell the habitat
story. By total volume of all crops, 21% was grasshoppers, 59% fruits, 19% wheat & canola, and 1% buds. These foods were taken from
late September to early November, and illustrate changes in habitat and
food through fall. In summer, grasshoppers and other insects are a high
protein favorite. After the first few frosts when grasshoppers
disappear, nutritious berries are a staple. Once the young grouse can fly
well, the hen leads them to surrounding fields for grains. Through the
winter; all available dried and frozen fruits are finished off, and
shrub and tree buds become a staple - that's when hunters often see
grouse up in trees. This change in food shows the impacts of habitat
loss too. When grasslands are cultivated, all or most of the grass and
shrub cover disappears. Grasshoppers may be available in crop
borders, but if these are sprayed with pesticides they can harm the
grouse, especially the young. Grains and weed seeds are nutritious, but
when these are covered by deep or crusted snow, the grouse can't reach
them. This is when sharp-tails switch to tree-buds; something the
introduced grey partridge and pheasants do not.
Watching the dogs use their
noses to work scents left behind by grouse can help us
understand what grouse need for protection. Except for spotting flying
grouse or marking a shot grouse fall, dogs use scent to locate the
birds, not sight. Mammalian predators likely do the same, while raptors use sight, a grouse that crawls under
a dense matt of grass where the wind is still, can be very difficult to
find for a dog; or a fox. This dense grass cover is also important
for a hen whose nest she needs to hide for as long as 40 days: 10 days
for laying, 22 for incubation and 7-10 more before the grouse chicks can fly short distances to try and escape. Every grouse hen has to count
on luck that no weasel, skunk, fox, coyote or farm cat walks by so close
that she has to flush and reveal her nest or brood's location. The
ranchers
use the pasture for summer-to-fall grazing near water sources. The rest
of the pasture without standing water becomes their "grass bank" in most
years. The ranchers know that in Saskatchewan dry years happen every so
often. Instead of buying feed, which is even more expensive in dry
years, they store some grass. When this grass is needed they can take
water by truck to those areas and let cattle use the native grass that
may be old but still has some forage quality in it. This grass-bank
grass is mixed with some new growth. Some new grass will grow even
in a dry year where the soil has been shaded and dead grass held needed
moisture. It is no accident that I found high numbers of grouse here. The grouse know that their survival depends on grass, and so should we.
Eighty percent of the grouse's prairie habitat has been altered for crop production, municipal services, resource extraction, transportation and the like.
Of the 20% that remains, much is in the southwest, the dry
sage grouse country where sharp-tails tend to be less frequent. Also,
much of it is used for season-long grazing, if that is what the ranchers prefer to do. The greatest hope for grouse hunters lies
with community pastures, the federal and provincial variety that makes
up 4% of prairie. Here the ranchers and pasture managers could be the
grouse hunters' allies. Sure ranchers know to look after grass and grow
cattle, but managing for cattle alone, or cattle and grouse together,
are slightly different ways of managing grass. Recently, the PFRA
pastures that have been managed for decades to the satisfaction of
farmers and hunters have been put up for sale. Were the cattle industry
in better shape financially they'd be gone. Other big-money interests
have offered to buy them, and they're just waiting. This is the
hunters' high time to get involved.
What I'm describing
is for that last 4% of prairie to be held in the public trust and
used for grazing, but also with a multifunction-arrangement in mind. For this we need to bring key parties
to the table, including the provincial government, producers, industry,
conservationists and hunters. Jointly we can develop a win-win
solution that ensures continued public ownership and sustainable
management of our pastures for the benefit of all Saskatchewan
residents. It's been the mixed farmer primarily who used community
pastures. When the grain operation on the mixed farm got busy, the
cattle went to the pasture where the pasture manager looked after
them. At the same time, the pasture manager made sure that oil and gas
disturbance was kept to a minimum, hunter access was managed, grazing
was adjusted to fight back invasive species, and the bulls, fences and
windmills were looked after year-round. These guys see things in grass
from their horse that goes over most of our heads. These pastures can be
the ace in the hole for grouse hunters and naturalists. We can stop
the relentless erosion of grouse bag limits, we just need to decide and
come together on it. Sure we need to save money where we can, but not
trade grouse for an uncertain heritage fund. The pasture manager's
salary has come 50% from pasture patrons and 50% from the public purse
for public benefits that were estimated by economists to be 2.5 times
more than costs.
I'm happy to let some of my taxes and hunting license fees go to paying pasture managers. More importantly, the oil, gas & gravel royalties that come from pastures but go into the government's general coffers are huge. Are we so poor in Saskatchewan that grouse hunting has to go? Will deer be next?
The
so-called pasture transition is not going as smoothly or quickly as was
hoped. Conservationists and naturalists have asked some serious
questions (e.g. http://pfrapastureposts.wordpress.com/) and especially
the pasture patrons have asked to be heard (see: http://www.cppas.co/) Where is our government's leadership? Bag limits are the environment ministry's responsibility, pastures belong to agriculture. It could be our government's legacy to create a Heritage
Rangelands division, or something, to bring the many interests to the
table while we still can. The majority of pasture patrons want to keep
the pasture managers and we hunters should help them succeed. Even if
I personally will be unlikely to hunt grouse in 2040, let's make sure
own kids still can.
