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History

Sage Grouse History

Date Event
 February
2012
  Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent failed to respond to the legal petition submitted by AWA and 11 other environmental groups before the January 16, 2012 deadline. After two months of silence, conservation groups have been left with no other choice than to pursue legal action against Kent for failing to uphold his duties under the SARA.
November
2011		 Ecojustice submits a legal petition on behalf of AWA and 11 other environmental groups, demanding federal Environment Minister Peter Kent take the action necessary to prevent the imminent extinction of sage-grouse in Canada, by issuing an emergency protection order under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA).
 September 2011
 AWA hosts an Emergency Sage-Grouse Summit, September 7, 8 2011. Leading international sage-grouse scientists, environmentalists and landowners gather together to plan what emergency action is needed to recover sage-grouse in Alberta before it is too late. The summit results ion a communique, published September 8, which lays out recommendations from sage-grouse recovery. Recommended actions include:
  • Designate additional critical habitat as identified on proposed critical habitat maps produced in 2010.
  • No new developments in critical greater sage-grouse habitat. Major concerns are regarding prolonged or expanded industrial development and associated activities in and around critical habitat.
  • Restore existing critical habitat, including removal of industrial infrastructure.
  • To allow for future recovery, previously occupied range outside current critical habitat must be restored to functionality suitable for greater sage-grouse.
  • Any new development outside of critical habitat but within the identified zone of influence (15 kilometres) must not contribute to the disturbance of the species or destruction of critical habitat.
 November 2010
 Important study, Sage-Grouse Habitat Selection During Winter in Alberta, (by Jennifer Carpenter, Cameron Aldridge, and Mark S. Boyce) is published in the Wildlife Society's Journal of Wildlife Management, November 2010.
  • "During winter, sage-grouse selected dense sagebrush cover...and avoided energy development and 2-track truck trails." "Sage-grouse avoidance of energy development highlights the need for comprehensive management strategies that maintain suitable habitats across all seasons."
  • No sage-grouse was found within 1,293 metres of a gas well: "avoidance of energy development by sage-grouse in Alberta resulted in substantial loss of functional habitat surrounding wells,"
The report makes management recommendations:
  • "We recommend that areas identified as crucial to meeting winter habitat needs of sage-grouse be protected from disturbance and degradation and designated as Critical Habitat under the Canadian Species at Risk Act..."
  • "Moreover, we recommend a setback distance of 1,900 m for any energy development from all winter habitats identified as Critical Habitat based on our model."
 2010 Government and industry stand by and watch as sage-grouse continue to slide towards extinction on Alberta. "This will be the first case where the oil and gas industry has caused the extirpation of a species from Alberta," comments University of Alberta scientist Mark Boyce. The cause is clear: "That area is just being riddled and fragmented into little tiny pieces by gas development." And yet still nothing is done. "We've known this is a serious problem for five years. But the province has failed or refused to do anything about it."

Just 39 male sage-grouse were recorded on Alberta's remaining leks in 2010.
2009

In a precedent-setting decision, July 9, a federal court judge in Vancouver rules that Environment Canada broke the law by refusing to identify critical habitat in a recovery plan for the endangered greater sage-grouse. The environmental groups argued in court that the Minister had ample evidence to identify critical habitat. The judge agrees; he states it was “unreasonable” for the government to claim it could not identify breeding grounds when knowledge of their locations was “notorious.” He points out that the federal government was seeking too high a threshold for identifying critical habitat, suggesting they are seeking “precision or exactitude” whereas the law requires the “best available information.” He also makes it clear that designating critical habitat is not discretionary: it is a requirement the Minister must follow.

Later, Environment Canada produces an appendix to its original Recovery Strategy, which identifies a limited amount of sage-grouse critical habitat. Environmental groups now have to decide whether a new court case will be required to force the government to actually protect this habitat.

Annual count of male sage-grouse finds just 66 remaining.
Early 2008

A lawsuit is filed by Ecojustice on behalf of AWA, Federation of Alberta Naturalists, Grasslands Naturalists, Nature Saskatchewan and the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. The lawsuit claims that the federal Recovery Strategy for greater sage-grouse neglected to identify critical habitat for sage-grouse, despite having ample scientific evidence to do so.

Only 78 male sage-grouse are counted on Alberta's remaining leks, a decline of 13% over the past year.

Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) assesses the prairie population of the greater sage-grouse as endangered.
 April 2008
 Federal Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada publishes its assessment for sage-grouse: "This large grouse is restricted to sagebrush grasslands in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan and has suffered significant population declines (42% over the last 10 years, 88% since 1988). The number of leks (male display sites) has decreased by 50% in the last 10 years and there are now less than a thousand breeding birds in the population. Causes for the decline are largely due to the loss, fragmentation and degradation of its native grassland habitats
through oil and gas exploration, overgrazing and conversion to crops."
 January 2008
 Federal report, Recovery Strategy for the Greater Sage-Grouse in Canada is published. Includes target of:
  • "No loss of active Sage-Grouse leks or Sage-Grouse population numbers in any portion of the current Sage-Grouse range in Alberta and Saskatchewan."
  • "By 2012, improve Sage-Grouse population status and productivity within Alberta and Saskatchewan so that all populations within the current range show a positive trend in the number of strutting males at leks and the number of active leks for the period 2000 to 2012."
 2006  90 male sage-grouse counted on leks in Alberta.
2001
 108 male sage-grouse counted on leks in Alberta. Total provincial population estimated at 480 birds.
 2000 Assessment and Status Report on the Greater Sage Grouse Centrocercus urophasianus in Canada is published.
 1998 Report, Status of the Sage Grouse in Alberta, published by Alberta government. The report documents that Alberta's sage-grouse population has experienced "an 80 percent decline over the past few decades." Population estimate is pegged at 320 individuals (of both sexes). Declines "are most often attributed to the loss of habitat resulting from human encroachment on native prairie." Alberta's sage-grouse "may be near levels that are nonviable."
 1996 Sage-grouse added to Alberta's "blue" list, as a species that may be at risk in the province, due to declining population numbers (Status of the Sage Grouse in Alberta, 1998).
Hunting season for sage-grouse is closed in Alberta (there has been an open season on hunting sage-grouse since 1967).
1994
 Start of annual sage-grouse lek counts in Alberta.
 1991  Sage-grouse given "yellow" listing in Alberta, as a species of concern in Alberta, due to their naturally low populations and their limited habitat and distribution ion the province (Status of the Sage Grouse in Alberta, 1998). Sage-grouse open hunting season continues.
1968
 613 male sage-grouse counted on 21 leks in Alberta.
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