One misty, moisty morning
“You can tell when a female’s on the lek because the males will start jumping up in the air,” said Rick Hoffman, former wildlife researcher for the Colorado Division of Wildlife (now Colorado Parks and Wildlife). From inside Hoffman’s truck, we stared out on a foggy field on a rainy dawn in Moffat County, hoping for any sign of Columbian sharp-tailed grouse. Normally, Hoffman explained, hordes of male grouse would be calling, dancing, jumping, anything to get the attention of picky females.
“They’re like, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’” said Peach Van Wick, Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s (CPW) Wildlife Health Program Supervisor.
“I think of all the grouse, the sharp-tails put on the best show,” added Hoffman.
Looking through the windshield, all we saw was wet grass, a few silent grouse and a lot of empty traps.
“Welcome to grouse trapping,” said Hoffman.
“Hurry up and wait,” added Van Wick.
We stared into the quiet prairie hoping the “show” would start any minute. A moderate rain clicked on the outside of the truck, like a teasing, ticking clock trying our patience.
A check for leks
In early April, CPW announced the wildlife and habitat projects that would receive funding from Senate Bill 24-230 (SB230). This bill establishes new production fees on oil and gas development projects to mitigate the negative impacts these activities can have on wildlife habitats. Leadership at CPW identified projects for early investment of these funds. One of these investments was $85,000 toward Columbian sharp-tailed grouse translocations, capturing and moving birds from one population to another. Translocations can support genetic diversity and help maintain the health of populations.
Columbian sharp-tailed grouse are one of six subspecies of sharp-tailed grouse. The shape and size of small chickens, sharp-tails are key players in western prairie habitats. Like prairie-chickens and sage-grouse, they gather in leks, spots where males dance the morning away to impress onlooking females.
According to Hoffman, these birds only live about three or four years, so their time to continue their family line is short. Best not hold back.
A very, very, very fine grouse
Showy mating displays are common in nature, but especially in birds. In many species, males combine brightly emblazoned body parts, flourishing movements and elaborate vocalizations in daring demonstrations of panache. There’s a plethora of colorful examples: the sage-grouse of the American West and the birds-of-paradise of New Guinea, to name a few.
Again and again, evolution nudges birds towards a courtship strategy of “dance, mate, repeat.” The basic idea is always the same, but in each species, the choreography is a little different.
Sharp-tailed grouse employ a variety of movements and vocalizations in their displays. They begin with a bow, as if anticipating applause, and spread their wings to form a tent over the ground. As they stomp their feet with the speed and fury of a Led Zeppelin drumline, they twirl in a neat circle. While stomping and circling, their neck feathers part to show the brilliant mauve color of their extended air sacs. They finish with a few calls that form a strange harmony of bright chirps and guttural croaks. It’s as beautiful as it is bizarre, dancing on the line between elegant and silly.
But the dance of the sharp-tailed grouse is more serious business than the Macarena. When a male stomps his feet and puffs out his air sacs, he’s demonstrating that his genes are the best. He’s showing that his genes make him healthy and strong enough to afford the energy that all of this vigorous swaggering demands. Most importantly, he’s telling every female on the lek that if she mates with him, her offspring will inherit those good genes.
But the contest isn’t as gentlemanly as “may the best dancer win.” Males peck and snap at one another in between performances. Much of the movement (and the comedy) on the lek is the result of males furiously chasing one another. With very little up-and-down movement, they look like toy race cars as they zoom over the flat prairie. Through greater size, experience and sense of urgency, the older males dominate the younger. Their seniority grants them premium access to the center of the lek — where the females camp out to watch, listen and choose.
Leks aren’t just where birds happen to gather that morning; they’re well-established, ongoing sites for courtship rituals. Leks can be old, lasting for generations of grouse across multiple decades. Some leks have been used for more than 50 years. “They’re traditional sites,” said Hoffman.
The Columbian sharp-tailed grouse was once a widespread subspecies, but now occupies only small pockets of its former range. Restoring this subspecies involves cutting-edge research, careful planning and, most fun of all, capturing birds.
Conserve and report
At a glance, all sharp-tailed grouse subspecies look and behave the same. The plains sharp-tailed grouse takes up the northeast corner of the state, but their full range extends farther north. (On a map, you can see they cover almost the entirety of Montana.) Columbian sharp-tails are found in small sections of the northwest corner of Colorado. A larger, separate population exists in northeast Utah, southwest Idaho and a small section of western Wyoming.
Today, this subspecies takes up a sliver of its historic range, but Hoffman recalls a time when the earth literally quaked with stomping, dancing grouse.
Natural communities of prairie vegetation provide a steady food supply for grouse. Not only that, but prairie grasses provide cover that mothers use to hide their nests from predators. Much of this habitat had been lost or damaged by the mid-1900s. A combination of excessive and improperly managed cattle grazing and non-native grasses led to these losses. The Columbian sharp-tailed grouse had been reduced to a relict of a once-widespread subspecies.
In the early 2000s, translocations had already begun. The then-Division of Wildlife restored a population of grouse in Grand County. Today, that population has multiple leks (forming a lek complex) and is strong and healthy — but isolated.
According to Brian Holmes, a wildlife biologist with CPW, the reason for these translocations isn’t to reestablish a population, but to enhance the existing Grand County population.
A small, disconnected group can become a genetic island. Generation after generation, the same old genes get passed around. This causes the genetic makeup of the population to drift towards uniformity. In a genetically uniform population, there’s little variation between individuals. A population like this isn’t just low in diversity; it’s actually less prepared to adapt to changes in its environment.
If all the grouse are genetically the same, it’s less likely that any of them would have a unique mutation for toleranting drier conditions, for example. If an unusually dry year rolls in, it could spell disaster for the whole group.
A genetic augmentation is an injection of fresh genes into a population. In this case, translocating a handful of birds from Moffat to Grand County will give the Grand County population a boost in genetic diversity. Ensuring the health and longevity of the Grand County population means that the hard work that went into establishing it won’t be wasted.
Without the new funding from SB230, avoiding that waste might have been harder. According to Holmes, the allocation “just allows us to do [translocations] with some breathing room rather than on a shoe string.”
Before translocations can begin, our experts need to be sure translocations will move just genes — not germs.
Van Wick, a wildlife veterinarian, explained that some populations may thrive with specific germs, but others may become sick from exposure. Testing for the most likely bugs is a routine precaution, and another measure to protect the hard-won gains of past efforts.
On this first round of translocations, Van Wick was collecting two kinds of samples. From each captured grouse, she collected both a blood sample and a choanal swab, taken from inside the mouth with a Q tip. The samples would then be sent off to the lab to ensure that these Moffat County birds wouldn’t bring any “hitchhiker” germs to Grand County.
Bust
Using typical grouse behavior to their advantage, staff had set traps made of chicken wire at the center of the lek. The hope is that some females, as they scurry away from males coming on too strong, will be funnelled into the traps. Some males, as they chase and peck at one another, will also make their way into the traps. But for any of that to work, first you need birds.
Eventually, our optimism ran out. Hoffman and Van Wick sulked out onto the lek to close up the empty traps. In the end, we saw a handful of grouse. Some were strutting, some were sitting in the grass looking as bored as we were. We even saw a few bouts of chasing. But, as if an inaudible alarm clock had rung, all the birds on the lek flew off in unison. It was a bit of a revelation — the grass hid them so well that there were many more than I realized. I honestly felt a little cheated: In my unsolicited opinion, there were more than enough grouse out there for a decent show. But I’m not here to tell another species how to do its job.
Though we didn’t get much activity ourselves, we weren’t the only group out for grouse that morning. We were in a lek complex, a cluster of leks in a larger area, and other CPW groups were trying their luck at other spots.
Grouse in hand
“All grouse have feathered feet,” said Hoffman, showing us the foot soles of a captured grouse.
Other CPW teams had more success than we did. Holding pillow cases with surely confused grouse in them, staff stood at the processing station set up by Van Wick and CPW’s field capture technician, Kaytlin Bohr. Hoffman would carefully remove a grouse from its case and hold it still while Van Wick drew a blood sample. To keep the birds calm, we all stood in silence, watching the delicate process.
In between processings, Hoffman would take the opportunity of having a grouse in hand to teach us a thing or two.
“The females have eye combs, but not as prominent as on the males,” he said while gesturing to the bright orange, brushy brows of the male grouse he was cradling.
After processing, I walked out with Hoffman to release one of the grouse back into its habitat. We discussed some of the inside baseball of grouse biology. I made a point that I feel forever obliged to make when grouse come up in conversation: “Another thing that I’ve noted,” I offered, “is that ‘lek’ is a great Scrabble word.”
Hoffman agreed. “And then probably the person you’re playing will say, ‘That’s not a word!’” (A situation I’ve often been in.)
The future of grouse
Two weeks after my visit, staff captured and successfully translocated a select number of the Moffat County birds over to Grand County. (I wasn’t able to make it out in time, but I’ll allow the drone footage below to speak for itself.)
The new funding from SB230 allows CPW to shuffle the genetic deck for this population, supporting its long-term health. According to Kathy Griffin, CPW’s Grouse Conservation Program Manager, SB230 support will “keep work that we started a decade or more ago moving forward.” Making solid gains in conservation is about long-term plans, nurturing habitats and populations over years and decades.
“A lot of our projects, like our habitat restoration projects in the sagebrush ecosystem, they take multiple years of going back in,” said Griffin. “First, you’ve got to get rid of the invasives [destructive, non-native plants], and that can take one, two, three years. And then you’ve got to make sure the noninvasive and the natives get established, and that can take another three years.”
The gains from modestly funded, one-year projects can be easily lost. Even longer projects, if they lose support prematurely, can quickly be undone. With these resources, CPW can lock in the progress of past efforts. Through smart, sustainable conservation efforts, Colorado’s northwest prairies may, once again, quake with the early morning stomps of dancing grouse.
By: John Anglin, CPW Communications Specialist
