Study suggests sage grouse not in great peril – mining group
Scott Streater and Manuel Quiñones, E&E reporters
Published: Tuesday, June 24, 2014
A national mining group says a recent academic study casts doubt on the science used by the Fish and
Wildlife Service to determine that the greater sage grouse warrants federal protection, and the group is
asking the service to re-evaluate whether the bird is truly in great peril.
The American Exploration & Mining Association sent a three-page letter late yesterday to FWS Director
Dan Ashe requesting that he direct the service to revisit the 2010 decision to name the greater sage
grouse as a candidate species for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.
At issue is the 11-page study being published in The Open Ornithology Journal, that used data in existing
genetic research and other population studies and found that sage grouse do not appear to be suffering
the genetic degradation or inbreeding that would be expected in a species struggling with dwindling
habitat and population numbers.
The study's conclusion that the grouse "does not exhibit expected genetic signatures of declining
populations" is potentially significant, because loss of genetic diversity would make the bird more
vulnerable to disease and less likely to adapt to other factors such as habitat fragmentation and climate
change -- factors that could lead to its extinction in the coming decades.
"It says that maybe the concern [for the grouse] is not quite as great as you might have thought," Robert
Zink, a University of Minnesota ornithologist who conducted the study, told Greenwire.
"There does not appear to be the signatures of [genetic] bottlenecks and inbreeding that we worry about,"
he added. "The standard genetic signals of what you expect in declining populations did not appear to be
there."
Habitat fragmentation leading to "genetic degradation" was one of the reasons Fish and Wildlife cited as
justification for designating greater sage grouse as a candidate species for ESA protection four years
ago. The service is currently reviewing the status of the grouse and is under a September 2015 deadline
to decide whether to list the bird as threatened or endangered.
Zink said the results of his research don't "mean the sage grouse is in for clear sailing." Rather, the
genetic degradation issue is "a piece of the puzzle" that "should be considered" when determining the
status of the bird and how best to protect it.
But the AEMA is using Zink's study to question Fish and Wildlife's evaluation of the greater sage grouse,
as well as ongoing efforts by the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service to adopt extensive
sage grouse protection measures into land-use plans across the bird's 11-state Western range.
The Fish and Wildlife Service did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.
The debate over how best to manage the bird and its sagebrush steppe habitat has been highly political
in recent years, with Western governors and some congressional leaders complaining that the federal
government needs to step back and let the states take the lead on grouse management.
The AEMA's letter asserts that Zink's research casts doubt on the service's reliance on a study led by
Edward Garton at the University of Idaho and others that suggested grouse populations would
consistently decline across its range over the next century unless significant steps were taken to protect
the bird.
The Garton study indicated there could be widespread loss of greater sage grouse across its Western
range. The study used counts of male grouse at nearly 10,000 breeding grounds, called leks, from as far
back as 1965 and attempted to estimate future populations.
The study evaluated a "range-wide metapopulaiton" using a range of models and found that "at least 75
percent of the populations ... are likely to decline below effective population sizes" within the next 100
years "if current conditions and trends persist."
But if populations are declining already, there should be some evidence of inbreeding or genetic
bottlenecking, and the Zink study found no evidence to support this, critics say.
Zink's study "raises significant questions with regard to the viability of Garton et al.'s findings, and
ultimately the basis for a 'warranted' finding," the AEMA letter to Ashe said. "The key finding is that the
remaining populations are not in genetic peril, as suggested by USFWS in its ESA-listing determinations
for the [greater sage grouse] and its distinct population segments."
As a result, Fish and Wildlife is compelled to acknowledge there is "substantial disagreement regarding
the sufficiency or accuracy of the available data relevant to the [2010] determination," according to the
AEMA letter, which was signed by Laura Skaer, executive director of the Spokane, Wash.-based
association.
Skaer said in an interview that her group has been referencing the study since last year, before it had
been peer-reviewed and published, after one of the AEMA's members heard a discussion of the
preliminary results in December.
Now that the study has gone through the necessary peer review, Skaer said it should become a
significant source of science in the Obama administration's sage grouse policy.
That includes revisiting whether the bird deserves federal protection. "They should, in our view, stop the
presses and take a look at the science," she said. "That's our goal."
Differences of opinion
Not surprisingly, Zink's study has critics who question the effort by the AEMA to spin it as evidence that
the grouse is not really in great peril.
Mark Salvo, director of federal lands conservation for Defenders of Wildlife, acknowledged the findings in
Zink's report that the grouse does not "exhibit expected genetic signatures of declining populations" as a
characteristic that could be unique to the grouse.
"Perhaps sage grouse are a species that maintains genetic diversity nearly to the point of" extinction,
Salvo said in an email. "As Dr. Zink noted in his paper, the sage-grouse population in Alberta, Canada,
remains genetically diverse, even though it has nearly disappeared from the landscape."
Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist with WildEarth Guardians, points to conclusions in Zink's study regarding
the separate "bi-state" grouse population found in southwest Nevada and central California that indicates
significant population declines over the coming decades.
"This by itself is strong evidence that the Bi-State population warrants listing as an endangered, not
threatened, species," Molvar said in an email.
The Agriculture and Interior departments last week announced they would commit a total of $32 million
over the next decade to boost ongoing conservation efforts to protect this subpopulation of greater sage
grouse (E&ENews PM, June 20).
Salvo said in his email that the AEMA is too "narrowly focused on sage grouse genetics to the exclusion
of other information that indicates that sage grouse are imperiled."
"The research indicates that sage grouse have maintained some genetic diversity. That's the good news,"
Salvo said of Zink's study. "The bad news is that the grouse continue to be threatened by a multitude of
other factors."
The greater sage grouse remains in trouble, he said.
"Westerners, scientists who have dedicated their careers to the species, more than a dozen federal and
state agencies and even industry agree that sage grouse are in trouble and something must be done to
save them," he said.
Email: sstreater@eenews.net