Abstract
Hunter harvest of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter “sage-grouse”) has been regulated by wildlife agencies during most of the past century. Hunting season regulations were maintained with the intention of providing sustainable hunting opportunities. Sage-grouse populations oscillate over time, and population growth can be influenced by seasonal weather and habitat disturbance. From 1995–2013, we compared sage-grouse lek trends from 22 relatively distinct sage-grouse population segments in 9 western U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces. We stratified these populations into 3 broad categories (non-hunted [n = 8], continuously hunted [n = 10], and hunting season discontinued between 1996–2003 [n = 4]) with 8 different regulation histories to evaluate the potential impact of harvest on sage-grouse populations. Concomitantly, we assessed the effects of proportion burned, forested and cropland habitat; winter, spring, and summer precipitation; and human population, road, and oil and gas well densities on initial and time-varying lek counts. Density-dependent models fit lek trend data best for all regulation histories. In general, higher proportions of burnt, forested, and cropland habitat; and greater human population and oil and gas well densities were associated with lower equilibrium abundance (K). We found mixed results regarding the effect of hunting regulations on instantaneous growth rate (r). The cessation of harvest from 1996–2001 in approximately half of the largest sage-grouse population in our analysis was associated with higher r. Continuously harvested sage-grouse populations with permit hunting seasons had higher r during years with higher proportion of area exposed to permitted hunting rather than general upland game seasons. However, more liberal hunting regulations were positively associated with higher r in populations continuously harvested under general upland game hunts. Our results suggest that discontinuing harvest in the largest population resulted in greater population growth rates; however, this was not consistently the case for smaller populations. To no surprise, not all sage-grouse populations were influenced by the same environmental change or human disturbance factors. Our results will assist managers to understand factors associated with K, which provides the best targets for conservation efforts.
Highlights
State and provincial wildlife management agencies in the United States and Canada have been tasked with maintaining viable wildlife populations
A total 935 leks were provided in the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) and wildlife agency datasets, which we reduced to 400 (43%) based on our lek data restrictions
Our models indicated that higher proportions of burned (Never1995, Never1996, First-Year, Permit, and Study-Continuous regulation histories) and forested (General regulation history) habitat were associated with lower equilibrium abundance (Fig 5)
Summary
State and provincial wildlife management agencies in the United States and Canada have been tasked with maintaining viable wildlife populations. These agencies categorize population status and trends of numerous wildlife species and designate appropriate conservation actions for species of conservation concern. Continued loss of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) habitat has been identified as the largest threat to sage-grouse population persistence [5,6,7,8,9] These issues have prompted multiple petitions to the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to list sage-grouse as threatened or endangered throughout its range in the United States [10], and an endangered listing under the Canadian Species at Risk Act [11]. There have been many concerns from the public about the continued human hunting of sage-grouse from both biological and sociological perspectives
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