Flyer Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society Chartered by the National Audubon Society since 1974 Serving southeastern Wyoming Audubon members Officers and Committee Chairs Barb Gorges, President—307-634-0463, [email protected]Dennis Saville, Vice president—307-632- 1602, [email protected]Donna Kassel, Secretary—307-634-6481 Chuck Seniawski, Treasurer, 307-638-6519, [email protected]Jack Palma, Audubon Rockies liaison— [email protected]Pete Arnold, Audubon Rockies liaison Greg Johnson, Bird Compiler—307-634- 1056, [email protected]Conservation—Vacant Belinda Moench, Education—638-8257 Field Trip—Vacant Historian—Vacant Mark Gorges, Newsletter, Habitat Hero program—307-287-4953, [email protected]Art Anderson, Important Bird Areas— 307-638-1286 Wanda Manley, Member at Large Membership—Vacant Barb Gorges, Programs—307-634-0463, [email protected]Lorie Chesnut, Hospitality, Website The CHPAS Flyer is published monthly as a bene- fit of chapter membership. Submissions are wel- come. The current issue is available online at www.CheyenneAudubon.wordpress.com. Please become a CHPAS member—Send $12 and your name and mailing address to the chapter. Include your e-mail address to get your newsletter digitally to save re- sources and see the photos in color. All chap- ter memberships expire Aug. 31. Cheyenne-High Plains Audubon Soc. P.O. Box 2502 Cheyenne, WY 82003-2502 www.CheyenneAudubon.wordpress.com Wyobirds e-list - Subscribe, post and/or read interesting sightings: http:// home.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa- HOME.exe?A0=WYOBIRDS. January 2018 Jan. 26—Cheyenne Country Club Survey 8 a.m. Contact Chuck Seniawski if you wish to take part or be on his email notice list: 638- 6519, [email protected]. You are welcome to join the group, but please register with Chuck the week before the survey so that we can arrange golf carts for the survey. Feb. 16-19—Great Backyard Bird Count, http://gbbc.birdcount.org/ Feb. 20—Program: 7 p.m., Cottonwood Room, Laramie County Public Library, 2200 Pioneer Ave., Cameron Nordell, University of Wyoming, “The effects of anthro- pogenic and environmental stressors on nesting raptors - lessons for Wyoming.” Feb. 24—Field Trip Feb. 27—Board Meeting, 7 p.m., Windflower Room, Laramie County Public Li- brary, 2200 Pioneer Ave. Jan. 16—Program: Wyoming Toad Reintroduction Pro- gress, 7 p.m., Cottonwood Room, Laramie County Public Library, 2200 Pioneer Ave. Jason Palmer and Heidi Meador are biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Jason has managed the Wy- oming Toad captive breeding project for 15 years. The talk will focus on changing the release strategy over the last three years to help them try to reach their recovery goals. This change has included a expansion of the captive breeding fa- cility at Saratoga Fish Hatchery. Jan. 23—Board Meeting, 7 p.m., Windflower Room, Laramie County Public Library, 2200 Pioneer Ave. Jan. 27—Field Trip to Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge: We will tour the visitors center and look for bison, prairie dogs, bald eagles, other raptors and other winter wildlife. We leave from the Lions Park parking lot at the Chil- dren's Village at 8 a.m. Carpooling may be available. We will drive south on I-25 to the Arsenal. We should return by 1 p.m., but if you drive, you can leave whenever you need to. Bring water and your lunch, if you like. Please contact Mark for more information, 307-287-4953, and to be on the list of participants to be notified of any change in plans due to weather.
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Flyer Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society Chartered by the National Audubon Society since 1974
Please become a CHPAS member—Send $12 and your name and mailing address to the chapter. Include your e-mail address to get your newsletter digitally to save re-sources and see the photos in color. All chap-ter memberships expire Aug. 31.
Published Dec. 10, 2017, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle By Barb Gorges
Over the eons, the greater sage-grouse figured out how to prosper in the sagebrush.
It’s not an easy life. Some years are too wet and the chicks die. Others are too dry with few leaves, buds, flowers or insects and the chicks starve. Some years there are too many hungry coyotes, badgers and ravens.
Every spring the sage grouse go to the meet-up at the lek, the sage grouse version of a bar [To find where to see sage grouse in Wyoming go to https://wgfd.wyo.gov/Habitat/
Sage grouse-Management/Sage grouse-Lek-Viewing-Guide]. The males puff out their chests vying for the right to take the most fe-males, then love them and leave them to raise the chicks on their own.
Experienced hens look for the best cover for their nests. They teach the young how to find food and avoid predators. In fall, every sage grouse migrates to winter habitat, 4-18 miles away.
In the past hundred years, obstacles were thrown in the path of sage grouse, including in their Wyoming stronghold where sage-brush habitat can be found across the whole state except in the south-east and northwest corners.
The low-flying birds collide with fences, vehicles, utility lines. The noise from oil and gas operations pushes them away. Sagebrush disappears with development.
Each state is responsible for all wildlife within its borders. But if a species heads for extinction, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-vice steps in. Since 1985, the sage grouse population declined 30 percent across the West. It looked like the species might be listed as either threatened or endangered, curtailing oil and gas drilling and other development.
Last month I explained how Wyoming conservationists, sportsmen, the oil and gas industry, agricultural interests and state and local government collaborated on a state plan to conserve sage grouse. However, the current federal administration wants all the state plans to be examined to see if sage grouse habitat can be more densely developed. Wyoming’s collaborators strongly disagree with the attempt. Public comments were solicited by the Bureau of Land Management through the end of November and the Forest Service is taking com-ments through January 5 [https://www.federalregister.gov. In the search area type: Ask Forest Service to Amend Greater Sage-Grouse Land Use Plan.].
Meanwhile, a Wyoming man is hoping to change the dy-
namics of the sage grouse issue by increasing their population through captive breeding.
Diemer True, of the True Companies (oil and gas drilling, support, pipelines, and seven ranches), and former president of the Wyoming Senate, bought Karl Baer’s game bird farm in Powell.
True convinced the Wyoming Legislature to pass legisla-tion during the 2017 session to allow him and Baer to apply for a permit allowing them to take up to 250 sage grouse eggs from the wild per year and experiment for five years with captive breeding. The idea is that birds can be released, bring up the numbers and may-be allow higher density of development in protected areas.
But no one has been very successful captive breeding sage grouse. No one has successfully released them to procreate in the wild and, if True is successful, he wants his techniques to be proprie-tary—he won’t share them. He wants to profit from wildlife rather than take the more typical route of supporting academic research.
Gov. Matt Mead signed the captive breeding legislation into law this fall. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission wrote very specific regulations about it, which you can read at https://wgfd.wyo.gov/Regulations/Regulation-PDFs/REGULATIONS_CH60.
Five permits are allowed, for a total withdrawal of 1,250 eggs per year, but it is doubtful that anyone besides True and Baer will qualify. Consensus among wildlife biologists I spoke to is that True will have trouble finding 250 wild eggs for his permit.
The facility requirements mean True is building new pens separated from the bird farm’s other operations. Despite these best management practices, there’s still a chance captive-bred birds could infect wild birds when they are released.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department monitors sage grouse leks every spring to see how successful the previous year’s breeding was. Numbers naturally vary widely year to year. The ef-fects of captive breeding on these surveys will be included when setting hunting limits.
No one who knows sage grouse well believes they can be bred in captivity successfully. Young sage grouse learn about surviv-al from their mothers. By contrast, the non-native pheasant captive-bred here is acknowledged to be a “put-and-take” hunting target. It hardly ever survives to breed on its own [in Wyoming].
We can only hope that this sage grouse experiment will go well. If captive-bred chicks don’t thrive in the wild, there will be some well-fed coyotes, badgers and ravens.