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History of the Sage Grouse in Kansas

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History of the Sage Grouse in Kansas Historyof the Sage Grousein Kansas RogerD. Applegate inferenceof the presenceof establishedpopulations from theseold Researchand Survey Office recordsmay be untoward. KansasDepartment of Wildlifeand Parks Goss(1891) dropped the SageGrouse from his later compendium on P 0 Box 1525 thehistory of Kansasbirds. Thompson and Ely (1989) regard the genus Emporia,Kansas 66801 asbeing of hypotheticaloccurrence in Kansas.Based on suchsketchy his- ([email protected]) toricalevidence that populationsof sage-grouseeven occurred in the SandhillSage areas of southwesternand south-central Kansas, the genus numberofauthors publishing onthe range of the Greater Sage- should be consideredhypothetical. Compilations of aviandistribution rouse(Centrocercus urophasianus ) and Gunnison Sage-Grouse (C. (e.g. Schroederet al. 1999)should not includeKansas as part of the his- mzmmu•Young et al. 2000)have induded southwestern Kansas in the toricalrange of sage-grouseunless better evidence is uncovered. knownhistorical range for the genus(Cable et al. 1996,Braun 1998, Schroederet al. 1999).The onlyknown extant citations for the occur- Acknowledgments rencesof anysage-grouse in Kansasare those of Goss(1883, 1886) and This work was supportedby the KansasDepartment of Wildlife and Cableet al. (1996). Parks'Small Game Management and Research Project. B. E. Flockgave Goss's(1883, 1886) record for sage-grousecame from "the authority usefulsuggestions on the manuscript. of Mr Will. T. Cavanaugh,Assistant Secretary of State,"who reported observingand shootingsage-grouse near the southwesternpart of Literature Cited Kansasduring the 1870s.The southwesternpart of Kansasis within240 Braun,C. E. 1998.Sage grouse declines in westernNorth America: what km of thehistoric range of sage-grousein Colorado (Young et al.2000). arethe problems?Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Western Cableet al.(1996) cited observations of sage-grouse harvested in Morton AssociationofFish and Wildlife Agencies 78: 139-156. County,Kansas, in the early1930s. Cable,T. T. 1996.Birds of CimarronNational Grassland. U.S. D. A. Forest Anecdotalhistorical records such as those used by Gosspose prob- ServiceGeneral Technical Report RM-GTR-281. Rocky Mountain lemsfor understandingthe past distribution of sage-grousepopulations. Forestand Range Experiment Station. Fort Collins,CO. Did Cavanaughactually know where he was?This questionis not as Goss,N. S. 1883.A catalogueof thebirds of Kansas.Kansas Publication absurdas it mayappear: southwestern Kansas was largely unsettled by House.Topeka. European-Americansin the 1870s.There were no roadshere, only the --. 1886.A revisedcatalogue of thebirds of Kansas. Kansas publication SantaFe Trail and some military trails used by the U.S. Army. Most peo- House.Topeka. pleknew their location only by geographicfeatures and by the amount --. 1891.History of the birdsof Kansas.George W. Crane'and Co., of timeit tookto travelbetween known points '(and this, in turn, pre- Topeka: sumedthat both points were at knownlocations in respectivestates!). Lauver,C. L., K. Kindscher,D. Faber-Lagendoen,and R. Schneider.1999 Of the threetall speciesof sagebrushclosely associated with sage- A classificationof the naturalvegetation of Kansas.Southwestern grouse habitat, Big Sagebrush(Artemesia tridentata), Three-tip Naturalist 44:421-443. Sagebrush(A. tripartita),and SilverSagebrush (A. cana),none are Schroeder,M. A., J. R. Young,and C. E. Braun.1999. Sage Grouse knownto haveoccurred in Kansas(Stephens 1973). The dominant--and ( Centrocercusurophasianus). In A. Pooleand E Gill,eds. The Birds of only--shrubbysage found in Kansasis the Sand or SandhillSage (A. ill- NorthAmerica 425. The Birdsof NorthAmerica, Inc., Philadelphia, zfoha)This species is characteristicof theArtemesia filifolia Shrubland PA. Alhancefound in southwesternand south-centralKansas (Lauver et al. Stephens,H. A. 1973.Woody plants of the North Central Plains. University 1999). of KansasPress. Lawrence, KS. Vagariesin nomenclaturealso present problems in evaluatingthe his- Thompson,M. C., and C. Ely. 1989.Birds in Kansas.Vol. 1. Pubhc torlcalhterature. Captain Albert Barnitz, Seventh U.S. Cavalry, noted in Education Series11, Universityof KansasMuseum of Natural an 1868letter to hiswife that he shottwo "sage hens" while camped on History.Lawrence, KS. CavalryCreek in present-dayComanche County. Barnitz thought these Utley,R. M. 1977.Life in Custer'scavalry: diaries and letters of Albert and birdsto be"muchlike prairie chickens" (Utley 1977). It isquite likely that JennieBarnitz, 1867-1868. Yale University Press. New Haven, CT. Barnltz'stwo sage hens were Lesser Prairie-Chickens (Tympanuchus pal- Young,J. R., C. E. Braun,S. J. Oyler-McCance,J. W. Hupp, and T. W hdzc•nctus).Many rural Kansans still refer to thisspecies as "sage hen" Quinn. 2000. A new species of sage-grouse(Phasianidae becauseof its affinityfor SandhillSage. Centrocercus)from southwesternColorado. Wilson Bulletin 112 Isolatedrecords of birdsharvested, while always of generalinterest, 445-453. do notnecessarily represent viable or wild populations.Biases of memo- ry and lackof skill in identificationcan also pose difficulties, and the --Received9March 2001;accepted 1 May 2001. • VOLUME 55 (2001), NUMBER 2 241 .
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