Centrocercus

Last updated

Sage-grouse
SageGrouse21.jpg
Adult male greater sage-grouse
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Galliformes
Family: Phasianidae
Tribe: Tetraonini
Genus: Centrocercus
Swainson, 1832
Type species
Tetrao urophasianus [1]
Bonaparte, 1827
Species
Sage and Gunnison Grouse Centrocercus urophasianus and minimus distribution map.png
Greater sage and Gunnison grouse ranges [2] [3]

Sage-grouse are grouse belonging to the bird genus Centrocercus. The genus includes two species: the Gunnison grouse (Centrocercus minimus) and the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus). These birds are distributed throughout large portions of the north-central and Western United States, as well as the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. [4] The International Union for Conservation of Nature classified the C. minimus species as endangered in 2020 [5] and C. urophasianus as near threatened in 2016. [6]

Contents

Names

The specific epithet is from another Greek word, "oura", plus "phasianos", pheasant. The noun "pheasant" was originally applied to a bird that was native to the valley of the Phasis River (now the Rioni River), which is located in Georgia. In the time of Lewis and Clark the word "pheasant" stood for "a genus of gallinaceous birds", according to lexicographer Noah Webster (1806), and the explorers often used it in that sense. "Gallinaceous" then referred to "domestic fowls, or the gallinae"; the family Galliformes (Latin "gallus", cock, and "forma", shape) now includes pheasants, grouse, turkeys, quail, and all domestic chickens.

Sage grouse are also collectively known as "sagehen," "sage grouse," "sage cock," "sage chicken," or "cock of the plains." [7]

History

Sage grouse have been widely recognized in Native American culture for some time. [8] The animals were a part of pre-columbian diets and were represented in certain traditional ceremonies, as well. Indeed, Sage Grouse previously inhabited most of what became the western United States, with ranges in 16 different states. [9]

In their day, Lewis and Clark were credited with the 'discovery' of five gallinaceous birds in addition to the sage grouse—the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, the dusky grouse, Franklin's grouse, the Oregon ruffed grouse, and the mountain quail; they were the first to widely spread knowledge about these birds to European settlers. [10]

US military issues

In September 2016, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) stalled in Congress because President Trump indicated he would not let the annual NDAA proceed to a vote in the House of Representatives unless it contained language to bar the sage grouse from the federal endangered species list until at least 2025. President Trump threatened a veto over the issue that Trump, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman, believed would be sustained. Current US Air Force spending on sage grouse conservation is around US$200,000, with eight known military installations having confirmed grouse populations: Dugway Proving Ground and Tooele Army Depot in Utah; Sheridan Training Area and Camp Guernsey in Wyoming; Hawthorne Army Depot and Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada; Yakima Training Center in Washington, and Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. [11]

Species

There are two species:

Genus Centrocercus Swainson, 1832 – two species
Common nameScientific name and subspeciesRangeSize and ecologyIUCN status and estimated population
Gunnison sage-grouse

Gunnison Sage Grouse (47460635881) (cropped).jpg
Male
079 - GUNNISON SAGE GROUSE (7-22-2015) rte 38, south of gunnison, gunnison co, co -17 (19475948523) (cropped).jpg
Female

Centrocercus minimus
Young, Braun, C, Oyler-McCance, Hupp & Quinn, 2000
southwestern Colorado and extreme southeastern Utah
Gunnison Grouse Centrocercus minimus distribution map 3.png
Size:

Habitat:

Diet:
 EN 


Greater sage-grouse

Centrocercus urophasianus -USA -male-8.jpg
Male
078 - GREATER SAGE GROUSE (4-18-2016) just west of coalmont, jackson co, co -03 (26658548316).jpg
Female

Centrocercus urophasianus
(Bonaparte, 1827)

Two subspecies
  • C. u. urophasianus
  • C. u. phaios
western United States and southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada.
Sage Grouse Centrocercus urophasianus distribution map 2.png
Size:

Habitat:

Diet:
 VU 


The Mono Basin population may represent a third species.

Anatomical features

Males of C. urophasianus are the largest grouse from temperate North America, attaining a maximum weight of 3.2 kilograms (7 lb). Adults have a long, pointed tail and legs with feathers to the toes. As in most Galliformes, there is pronounced sexual dimorphism.[ citation needed ]}

Courtship and mating

Centrocercus species are notable for their elaborate courtship rituals. Each spring males congregate on leks and perform a "strutting display." The male puffs up a large, whitish air sack on its chest, makes a soft drumming noise, and struts around with his tail feathers displayed and air sack puffed up. Groups of females observe these displays and select the most attractive males to mate with. Only a few males do most of the breeding. Males perform on leks for several hours in the early morning and evening during the spring months between February and April. Leks are generally open areas adjacent to dense sagebrush stands, and the same lek may be used by grouse for decades. [12]

Offspring

Hens build nests and lay and incubate their eggs under the cover of sagebrush. The hen uses grass and forbs between patches of sagebrush for additional cover. During incubation, female Sand Grouse undertake recesses, where they leave the nest to undertake self-maintenance activities, thought these recess activities are typically within 250 m of the nest. [13]

Chicks can walk as soon as they are hatched and are able to fly short distances within two weeks. Within five weeks they are able to fly longer distances.

Conservation status

Populations of sage grouse are in decline due to environment loss and decline of the pristine plains environments it requires to mate. The sage grouse is found in significant numbers within only half of the states comprising its original territories. The Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and other organizations have petitioned to list the grouse under the Endangered Species Act.

In March 2010 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) concluded that greater sage-grouse are warranted for protection as "threatened" under the U.S. federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). However the USFWS also concluded that immediate listing was "precluded" by higher listing priorities for other jeopardized species. Thus they designated the species a "Level 8 Candidate" for addition to the list of threatened species at some future date. Their finding is being litigated by groups contending the species should immediately receive protections under the ESA.

The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) investigated some of the reasons for the declining sage-grouse population. Researchers observed cattle who share grazing land with the sage-grouse. They found that cattle, after consuming about 40% of the tussocks in between sagebrush bushes, will continue to consume the tussocks growing underneath the sagebrush, thereby destroying the nesting habitat for the sage-grouse. [14] In order to preserve the population of sage-grouse, ranchers can monitor the rate at which cattle consume the tussocks in between sagebrush bushes. Once cattle have consumed around 40% of the tussocks in between bushes, researchers ask that ranchers move their cattle to new grazing trail.

GPS trackers show that sage grouse congregate in small areas with certain resources, rather than being widely spread. [15]

US federal conservation plans have been met with lawsuits from wildlife organizations. [16]

On December 6, 2018, according to the New York Times: [17]

The Trump administration on Thursday published documents detailing its plan to roll back Obama-era protections for the vast habitat of the greater sage grouse, a chickenlike bird that roams across nearly 11 million acres [4.5 million hectares] in 10 oil-rich Western states.

The earlier proposal to protect the bird, whose waning numbers have brought it close to endangerment, was put forth under the Interior Department in 2015 and set out to ban or sharply reduce oil and gas drilling in 10.7 million acres [4.3 million hectares] of its habitat.

The Trump plan, by contrast, would limit the grouse’s protected habitat to just 1.8 million acres [730,000 hectares], essentially opening up 9 million acres [3.6 million hectares] of land to drilling, mining and other development.

As a mascot

The sagehen is the mascot of the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens, the joint athletics program for Pomona College and Pitzer College, two of the Claremont Colleges. [18] [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galliformes</span> Order of heavy-bodied ground-feeding birds

Galliformes is an order of heavy-bodied ground-feeding birds that includes turkeys, chickens, quail, and other landfowl. Gallinaceous birds, as they are called, are important in their ecosystems as seed dispersers and predators, and are often reared by humans for their meat and eggs, or hunted as game birds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phasianidae</span> Family of birds

The Phasianidae are a family of heavy, ground-living birds, which includes pheasants, partridges, junglefowl, chickens, turkeys, Old World quail, and peafowl. The family includes many of the most popular gamebirds. The family includes 185 species divided into 54 genera. It was formerly broken up into two subfamilies, the Phasianinae and the Perdicinae. However, this treatment is now known to be paraphyletic and polyphyletic, respectively, and more recent evidence supports breaking it up into two subfamilies: Rollulinae and Phasianinae, with the latter containing multiple tribes within two clades. The New World quail (Odontophoridae) and guineafowl (Numididae) were formerly sometimes included in this family, but are now typically placed in families of their own; conversely, grouse and turkeys, formerly often treated as distinct families, are now known to be deeply nested within Phasianidae, so they are now included in the present family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black grouse</span> Species of bird

The black grouse, also known as northern black grouse, Eurasian black grouse, blackgame or blackcock, is a large game bird in the grouse family. It is a sedentary species, spanning across the Palearctic in moorland and steppe habitat when breeding, often near wooded areas. They will spend the winter perched in dense forests, feeding almost exclusively on the needles of conifers. The black grouse is one of two species of grouse in the genus Lyrurus, the other being the lesser-known Caucasian grouse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greater sage-grouse</span> Species of bird

The greater sage-grouse, also known as the sagehen, is the largest grouse in North America. Its range is sagebrush country in the western United States and southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada. It was known as simply the sage grouse until the Gunnison sage-grouse was recognized as a separate species in 2000. The Mono Basin population of sage grouse may also be distinct.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gunnison grouse</span> Species of bird

The Gunnison grouse, Gunnison sage-grouse or lesser sage-grouse is a species of grouse endemic to the United States. It is similar to the closely related greater sage-grouse in appearance, but about a third smaller in size, with much thicker plumes behind the head; it also has a less elaborate courtship dance. It is restricted in range to southwestern Colorado and extreme southeastern Utah, with the largest population residing in the Gunnison Basin region in Colorado. Despite being native to a country where the avifauna is relatively well known, it was overlooked until the 1990s due to the similarities with the sage grouse, and only described as a new species in 2000—making it the first new avian species to be described from the USA since the 19th century. The description of C. minimus as a separate species is supported by a molecular study of genetic variation, showing that gene flow between the large-bodied and the small-bodied birds is absent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharp-tailed grouse</span> Species of bird

The sharp-tailed grouse, also known as the sharptail or fire grouse, is a medium-sized prairie grouse. One of three species in the genus Tympanuchus, the sharp-tailed grouse is found throughout Alaska, much of Northern and Western Canada, and parts of the Western and Midwestern United States. The sharp-tailed grouse is the provincial bird of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green peafowl</span> Species of bird

The green peafowl or Indonesian peafowl is a peafowl species native to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia and Indochina. It is the national bird of Myanmar. Formerly common throughout Southeast Asia, only a few isolated populations survive in Cambodia and adjacent areas of Vietnam. It has been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2009, primarily due to widespread deforestation, agriculture and loss of suitable habitat, severely fragmenting populations and contributing to an overall decline in numbers. The green peafowl is in demand for private and home aviculture and threatened by the pet trade, feather collectors and hunters for meat and targeted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edwards's pheasant</span> Species of bird

Edwards's pheasant is a bird of the pheasant family Phasianidae and is endemic to the seasonal tropical forests of central Vietnam. It is named after the French ornithologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards and first described to science in 1896. The bird's length is 58–65 centimetres (23–26 in) and has red legs and facial skin. The male is mainly blue-black with a crest, and the female is a drab brown bird. The alarm call is a puk!-puk!-puk!.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caucasian snowcock</span> Species of bird

The Caucasian snowcock is a snowcock in the pheasant family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes, gallinaceous birds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crested partridge</span> Species of bird

The crested partridge also known as the crested wood partridge, roul-roul, red-crowned wood partridge, green wood quail or green wood partridge is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes, gallinaceous birds. It is the only member of the genus Rollulus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caucasian grouse</span> Species of bird

The Caucasian grouse or Caucasian black grouse is a large bird in the grouse family. It is closely related to the black grouse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sagebrush steppe</span> Grassland ecosystem

Sagebrush steppe is a type of shrub-steppe, a plant community characterized by the presence of shrubs, and usually dominated by sagebrush, any of several species in the genus Artemisia. This ecosystem is found in the Intermountain West in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Campbell teal</span> Species of bird

The Campbell teal or Campbell Island teal is a small, flightless, nocturnal species of dabbling duck of the genus Anas endemic to the Campbell Island group of New Zealand. It is sometimes considered conspecific with the brown teal. The plumage is similar to that of the Auckland teal, dark sepia with the head and back tinged with green iridescence, and a chestnut breast on the male, with the female dark brown all over. Its natural habitat is tussock grassland dominated by Poa tussock grass, ferns and megaherbs. The species also uses the burrows and pathways of petrel species that nest on the islands. They are apparently territorial in the wild, and probably feed on amphipods and insects. The IUCN classifies it as vulnerable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lesser prairie-chicken</span> Species of bird

The lesser prairie-chicken is a species in the grouse family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinese monal</span> Species of bird

The Chinese monal or Chinese impeyan is a pheasant. This monal is restricted to mountains of central China. The plumage is highly iridescent. The male has a large drooping purple crest, a metallic green head, blue bare skin around the eyes, a reddish gold mantle, bluish green feathers and black underparts. The female is dark brown with white on its throat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cantabrian capercaillie</span> Subspecies of bird

The Cantabrian capercaillie is a subspecies of the western capercaillie in the grouse family Tetraonidae. It is one of two subspecies found in Spain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wyoming Basin shrub steppe</span> Xeric shrubland ecoregion of the western United States

The Wyoming Basin shrub steppe ecoregion, within the deserts and xeric shrublands biome, is a shrub steppe in the northwestern United States.

<i>Astragalus anisus</i> Species of legume

Astragalus anisus is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common name Gunnison milkvetch. It is endemic to Colorado in the United States, where it is limited to the Gunnison Basin of Gunnison and Saguache Counties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pomona–Pitzer Sagehens</span> Joint athletics program of Pomona College and Pitzer College

The Pomona–Pitzer Sagehens are the joint varsity intercollegiate athletic programs for Pomona College and Pitzer College, two of the Claremont Colleges. It competes with 11 women's and 10 men's teams in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) of the NCAA Division III.

References

  1. "Phasianidae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
  2. BirdLife International and NatureServe (2014) Bird Species Distribution Maps of the World. 2012. Centrocercus urophasianus. In: IUCN 2014. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2014.3. "The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species". Archived from the original on 2014-06-27. Retrieved 2016-02-12.. Downloaded on 15 March 2015.
  3. BirdLife International and NatureServe (2014) Bird Species Distribution Maps of the World. 2012. Centrocercus minimus. In: IUCN 2014. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2014.3. "The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species". Archived from the original on 2014-06-27. Retrieved 2016-02-12.. Downloaded on 30 May 2015.
  4. "Species Profile (Greater Sage-Grouse urophasianus subspecies) - Species at Risk Public Registry". Registrelep-sararegistry.gc.ca. Archived from the original on 2017-08-24. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
  5. "Gunnison Grouse". IUCN Red List. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  6. "Sage Grouse". IUCN Red List. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  7. Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed., 2007)
  8. "A Sage-Grouse Natural History | Defenders of Wildlife". 25 July 2013.
  9. "Sage Grouse Biology".
  10. From Discovering Lewis & Clark, http://www.lewis-clark.org © 1998–2008 VIAs Inc.
  11. Grouse About This: A Funny-Looking Bird Is Holding Up Key National Defense Legislation, Joe Gould, DefenseNews.com, 27 September 2016, accessed 29 September 2016
  12. "Sage-Grouse Unique Mating Display Explained". nationalgeographic.com. Archived from the original on 2015-06-08. Retrieved 2015-06-07.
  13. Dudko, J.E.; Coates, P.S.; Delehanty, D.J. (2019). "Movements of female Sage Grouse Centrocercus urophasianus during incubation recess". Ibis. 161 (1): 222–229. doi: 10.1111/ibi.12670 .
  14. "Sagebrush Rangelands Are for the Birds—and Cattle". USDA Agricultural Research Service. April 30, 2010.
  15. Scott Streater (June 11, 2015). "Massive wind project aims to save the sage grouse". Environment & Energy Publishing. 'You think of these birds as being scattered across the landscape, and they really are not. They are specialists,' he said. 'They go to the same areas that provide certain resources every year.'
  16. Scott Streater (February 25, 2016). "SAGE GROUSE: Enviros sue to force changes to federal plans". Environment & Energy Publishing.
  17. Coral Davenport (December 6, 2018). "Trump Plans Major Rollback of Sage Grouse Protections to Spur Oil Exploration". New York Times.
  18. "Pomona Pitzer Sagehens Athletics". Pomono College–Pitzer College. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  19. Bell, Alison (19 September 2010). "Theirs is a 'big game' of a different stripe". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 24 August 2020.