Idaho Fish and Game officials will present proposed sage-grouse seasons and limits for the 2010 season to the Idaho Fish and Game Commission during the August 16 meeting in Idaho Falls.
Proposed sage-grouse seasons and limits are:
- Restrictive: Seven-day, one-bird limit statewide within sage-grouse range, except in designated closed areas. Open areas include parts of the Southwest, Magic Valley, Salmon and Upper Snake regions and the Curlew Grasslands and the Big Desert. The season would be September 18 through September 24.
- Closed: East Idaho Uplands area in southeastern Idaho; Washington and Adams counties; and Eastern Owyhee County and western Twin Falls County.
The closure in western Twin Falls County is a new recommendation based on a large decline in the number of birds counted at leks.
Recommendations follow the hunting season and bag-limit guidelines as laid out in the state plan for sage-grouse. These guidelines compare the current three-year running average of males counted at leks to counts from 1996-2000 when Idaho began to gather data statewide and when sage-grouse populations were low. The guidelines also allow the flexibility to consider local issues of concern, such as insufficient data, isolated populations, or impacts of wildfire and West Nile virus.
Sage-grouse is on the list of candidates for the federal endangered species list. Earlier in 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found listing sage-grouse was warranted but precluded by other, more pressing, needs. Candidate species are still state-managed species and hunting is legal. Hunting sage-grouse is allowed in nine of the 11 states where the birds are found.
Anyone interested may submit comments on the proposed seasons at one of several public open-house meetings around the state; to local Fish and Game offices; by mail to Sage-grouse Season Comments, c/o Idaho Fish and Game, P.O. Box 25, Boise ID 83707; or online at
http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/cms/public/.
The public comment deadline is Wednesday, August 11.
