My Least Favorite Season

Last Friday I ventured out, as I do at the end of every week, to track down my collared grouse. 45 was comfortably in the same area I've found her the past three weeks, hunkered down in greasewood alongside Skull Creek. After finding 45, I drove forty miles to the southwest, to Cellar's Loop, where my other four birds reside.

I started my tracking there with 64, my wayward female, whose wanderings miles from the site of her initial capture left me clueless about her location for nearly two months. This week she had ventured east and south, now comfortably on Simmons Ranch.

After flushing 64, I drove deeper into the grassland, to a area known fittingly as "Wildlife Draw." I turned the car down a bumpy two-track cutting through tall sage to a basin where my third female and my only male have spent most of their time. As I started down the two-track, I flipped on my receiver, tuning it casually to 94, reassured, as always, to her the faint, consistent pulse indicating that she was nearby... beep... beep... beep... beep... beep. I listened carefully to the signal, deciding that she was likely still a quarter- to a half-mile away, and stopped to check on the male, 254, before driving much farther in.

As I turned the dials on the receiver to pick up 254, my heart dropped. His signal was there, and loud, indicating he was nearby. But it was fast, nearly chaotic... beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep. A mortality signal. The collars are programmed to give a faster signal when the animal hasn't moved for a period of 24 hours, indicating death.

I parked the truck, my hands shaking. I grabbed the receiver, an antenna, and a pair of gloves, not relishing the thought of finding my only male disemboweled somewhere it the sage. I followed the signal up a hill, reminding myself that predation is a natural part of wild life. But as I summited the ridge, everything changed.

Below me, in the basin, I saw a flash of black, a dog, trailed by two individuals in bright orange, one carrying a gun. I sped up, desperate to find the male, terrified that his death was not natural, but a consequence of an inhumane and unwarranted "sport." My heart raced as the signal turned me towards a truck parked not too far away. Was I really fated to find the dead bird stored in the cab of some hunter's pickup?

Perhaps you can imagine my relief when, a few minutes later, the signal again indicated the male was somewhere in the basin, and not near the truck. I followed the signal, getting closer, and closer, and closer, the signal becoming louder, the direction narrowing to a single line. Had the hunters shot the bird and left it? I approached the area where I knew he must be, slowing my pace, scanning every space in and around the sage. I took one step, then another. Then, suddenly, three grouse rocketed upwards from the sage, all wings and feathers, chucking indignantly at my intrusion.

Out of habit, I quickly scanned their necks as they flew away. Wait! There- on that male! A collar! My collared male! He was alive! I was reassured that it was in fact my collared male as his signal became fainter, gradually fading as he disappeared from view. How strange... The collar must be malfunctioning, but my male was alive and safe. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

As I trekked back toward the two-track, I noticed that one of the hunters, a woman, had returned to the pickup, and was eyeing me suspiciously. I decided to counter her gaze with the least suspicious action possible: I walked over to talk to her.

"Hi there," I said. "Are you after grouse?" Please say no...

"Yes. Are you hunting grouse?"

Damn. Does it look like I'm hunting? I'm holding an antenna! "No. I'm with the Bureau of Land Management. I have three radio-collared grouse in this area, and I'm tracking them down."

"Oh, is that so? How often do you find them?"

"I come out every Friday. I was actually really nervous a few minutes ago. The collars on one of those birds I just flushed over there," I said, pointing, "was giving me a mortality signal, and I thought he was dead."

"My husband shot a collared grouse yesterday. Maybe it was that one."

Wait... what? "No, he was alive. Where were you yesterday?"

"We were right here. He shot it over there," she said, gesturing vaguely to an area about a half mile away, near some cottonwoods.

"Was it a male or a female?"

"I don't know. You'd have to ask my husband."

"What did the collar look like? Do you still have it?"

"Um... it was small, and black, and had a little antenna on it. We took it to the Forest Service office in Newcastle yesterday evening."

Oh no... Oh no, no, no... I just found 254, and I know 94 is nearby. But what about 14? She's been near those cottonwoods twice this summer. Could it really be...?

"We had a great day yesterday," she continued. It's so pretty out here. We saw lots of those antelope [pronghorn], and the weather was nice. Plus my husband got his limit... two birds! That one with the collar was pretty small. He said he normally wouldn't have shot it but it was far away and he couldn't really tell, so he just fired. But he got it! There are so many around here, it seems like. He's hoping to get another two today. He usually comes out with friends, but no one could come this year so I came with him...."

She kept talking, about the weather, about her husband, about Wyoming Game and Fish. She occasionally asked me a question or two, about the BLM, or what I was learning about grouse, about the upcoming decision whether or not to list the species as endangered. I wanted to tell her what I really thought- that it's ridiculous to have a hunting season on a species that may soon be listed, whose habitat and numbers have been threatened and declining for years. But all I could muster were rote answers, trying my hardest to be polite, all the while wondering if there was any chance that another group had collared grouse in this basin.

After the woman had exhausted her store of small talk I took my leave. She invited me to return later on in the afternoon to talk to her husband, who would have more details about the grouse shot the day before, but I knew there would be no need. I would either find 14, or I wouldn't, and either way I would have my answer.

I drove out of the area and circled around the outside of the basin, driving into Christensen Ranch and up onto a hillside with a summit overlooking the entire draw. I had visited this hillside nearly every week since June, taking readings of the locations of all three birds in the area, helping to pinpoint the places to which each bird had traveled since my last visit. I had never, ever failed to pick up signals on my birds from this hilltop. I ascended the hill, receiver in tow, already set to "14." I crested the hill and turned around to face the basin, steeling myself. Deep down I knew, even before I flipped the switch to turn the receiver on, that I would not find 14 today, or ever again. I raised the antenna and swept it slowly in an arc, hearing only the soft grinding clicks of static.

You may have read at some point, or perhaps heard, that it is considered "unscientific," or perhaps "too subjective" when researchers name their study animals instead of assigning numbers. After all, the point of science is complete, unbiased objectivity, records and data unfettered by anthropomorphism and human emotion. What they don't tell you is that the real reason most researchers don't name study animals is because it's easier to lose a number than a name, less painful to learn that "23" or "157" has died or been killed than "Henry" or "Tulia."

So ironically, after being sure that 254 was dead, terrified that he'd be shot, then immensely relieved at finding him alive, I was blindsided with the information that 14, a grouse who hasn't been on public land in months, was gone.

I love autumn, but the coinciding hunting season is something I wish would never happen. I feel as if enough deer, elk, pronghorn, rabbits, badgers, skunks, foxes, coyote, raccoons, and birds are killed on the highways every day. It will only get worse as we approach October, when rifle season opens. I can only say I'm glad I'm almost done with my fieldwork. Dealing with hunters isn't something I handle well.