I was going along nicely keeping up with this thread, and being somewhat
reassured by Dave Budeau saying:
Under current harvest
strategies, population data indicate population trends
are within the range of historical variation since 1980.
Then I saw Craig Miller's comment about "only 2% of past population."
Aargh!
So it looks like we are seeing another instance of the fallacy of "shifting
baselines," as brilliantly pointed out by Jim Lichatowich in connection with
salmon numbers. No comfort should be gleaned from a 1980 comparison without
keeping in mind the longer-range population collapse.
Thank you, Craig Miller, for bringing that uncomfortable fact into the
conversation.
Darrel Whipple
Rainier
On Mar 5, 2016, at 12:17 PM, Darrel Whipple wrote:
I was going along nicely keeping up with this thread, and being somewhat
reassured by Dave Budeau saying:
Under current harvest
strategies, population data indicate population trends
are within the range of historical variation since 1980.
On Mar 5, 2016, at 10:35 AM, Joel Geier wrote:
I guess ODFW doesn't have much to say about oil drilling in sage-grouse
habitat -- at least I'm not aware of any significant oil drilling in Oregon
-- though USFWS could have acted on that at the national level, in its
(non)listing decision.
Grazing reform and maintaining adequate landscape scale (limiting
encroachment by young junipers, wind turbines, power lines, residential
development etc.) would seem to be the main actionable issues here in Oregon.
I'd give ODFW credit for working on juniper encroachment, at least. The
other major issues are mostly outside of their scope of authority.
Grazing reform (and not in the direction that the Bundy gang had in mind)
and preserving open landscapes on existing public lands would seem to be the
most important topics for the rest of us to work on.
Joel
On Sat, 2016-03-05 at 07:11 -0800, Craig Miller wrote:
I didn't mean to imply that hunting is the cause. Degraded habitat is the
cause. Yes, about half its range, but only 2% of past population. All I am
saying is that if ODFW wants to be anserious about protecting sage-grouse,
it needs to pull out all the stops, including grazing reform, cessation of
oil drilling in sage-grouse habitat, and yes, even [cessation of] licensed
killing.
Craig Miller
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