|
>
Department >
Home >
Forage
Forage Extension Program
Sharp-tailed Grouse
Habitat Management Suggestions
for Selected Wildlife Species
By R.J. Mackie, R.F. Batchelor, M.E. Majerus, J.P. Weigand,
and V.P. Sundberg
"Sharptails
do not rely on cultivated crops at any time of
the year." |
Habitat is the key to sharptail management. Good quality
grasslands and brush cover are essential for grouse
survival. Quality habitat is a mixture of mid and tall
grasses, associated with shrubs, and a scattering of
crop-land. While quantity of habitat is important, it
is quality of habitat that determines reproductive success,
since nesting and brood-rearing cover are habitat elements
which, when inadequate, seriously limit grouse populations.
Since sharptails occupy a variety of plant communities,
species composition is not necessarily a prime factor
in measuring quality of grouse habitat. The height and
density of vegetation present are more important factors
determining habitat quality.
Food
Sharptails do not rely on cultivated crops at any time
of the year. Their use of crops is usually due to availability
and is greatest during fall and winter. Adult grouse
are primarily vegetarians, especially during the spring
months before abundant insect hatches. Buds, twigs,
leaves, and fruits that cling to shrubby and herbaceous
plants over winter make up the bulk of the sharptail’s
diet through the breeding season. The fleshy hips of
wild rose are often the most abundant fruit available
at this time and comprise much of the sharptail’s
food.
Leaves and flowers of succulent plants, dry seeds,
and fleshy fruits are important food items for adults
and are used more by the young as the summer passes.
Other important plant foods include hawthorn, prickly
lettuce, dandelion, and western snowberry. Although
the diet of the sharptail may include as many as 300
different items, the greatest bulk of their food consists
of less than a dozen plant species.
Habitat Management Suggestions
Grazing management is the key to maintaining sharptail
habitat. Proper range use that assures good forage production
and maintenance of the best forage producing native
grasses will provide adequate nesting, rearing, and
roosting cover. This level of grazing use will maintain
woody vegetation present in stream bottoms, draws, and
side-hill draws. Virtually all the elm, willow, boxelder,
plum, chokecherry, buffaloberry, and ash has been eliminated
by overgrazing in many sections of the present sharptail
range in North America. Habitat management should be
directed toward maintaining existing habitat through
grazing management programs. Such management provides
a realistic and achievable means for maintaining and
improving sharptail habitat.
The establishment of shelterbelts and field windbreaks,
in addition to meeting their primary conservation objectives,
can provide cover and food for sharptails, pheasants,
and a variety of non-game birds. This is especially
true if properly maintained and care is given to their
design and the selection of plant materials of value
to wildlife.
|
