# Catching Sage Grouse



## CPAjeff (Dec 20, 2014)

*Disclaimer - no sage grouse were harmed in the process!!


I had the opportunity last night/this morning to assist a couple graduate students with their sage grouse research project. As an accountant, it was really neat to be around them and learn more about these birds. The object of the research project is to determine the impact that grazing cattle in sage grouse nesting habitat has, brood success, along with a host of other things.

The night started at 10 pm as we got on 4-wheelers and went off into the night. There were two teams comprising of two individuals each. The driver would use the spot light and a pair of binoculars searching for the grouse. Once a grouse was found the driver would continue to shine the spot light at the bird and the passenger - holding a huge fish net would sneak up and catch it. The grouse was aged, weighed, banded, and equipped with a GPS backpack thingie. The GPS unit will send 5 locational readings to the system via satellite in a 24 hour period and the battery life of these units is about a year. 

Here are some pictures of the one we caught last night - she was aged a 2 years old, weighed 4 pounds, and she had 4 chicks with her. It was a cool experience!


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

This is my favorite thread.


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## Airborne (May 29, 2009)

CPAjeff,

If you want to do some more sage grouse stuff you can come along with the chukar foundation and do the Parker mountain sage grouse count on July 30th. I should probably post something about this separately but the short version is you arrive on Parker mountain the night of 7/29 and do the count on Saturday morning. It's a little more geared toward bird dog guys as they load transects on your gps to go and walk and kick up birds with your dogs and count and mark them. You then take the data back to the biologist at camp for him to download. If you don't have dogs or a gps maybe you could come walk along with somebody--just throwing it out there, I think it's neat to see the dog work and the grouse, plus it's a good excuse to camp. PM me if you want more info--I will try to get around to posting up the official invite later today. This was a great reminder!


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

That sounds like a blast!


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## tigerpincer (Dec 5, 2009)

Looks like fun Jeff. Hope the team is able to ascertain some helpful information.


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

Eclectic found one


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## gdog (Sep 13, 2007)

...Ozzy caught one too.


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## CPAjeff (Dec 20, 2014)

Great, now I have to edit the original post and remove my disclaimer. Congrats on some awesome birds!


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