A good friend was the DFG Unit biologist for the unit that included the Bodie Hills Sage Grouse hunt. He tried for years to end the hunt due to low bird numbers and poor recruitment into the population but headquarters refused. When the population is so low you have to draw for a bird tag it is an excellent indication of a population in decline.
It's not because of any drought or fire issues. They evolved in that dry climate, rather it's odd things that harm the population. For example, Bodie is a state park and the parks people at one time wanted to fence the range cattle out of the townsite. They put up a fence that went near one of that population's leks. They didn't ask my friend about DFG's concerns. Big deal, right? Actually it was because every one of those fence posts became a perch for raptors that were high enough to see the females sneaking through the sage to go to the males calling on the lek. It took my friend two years to finally get the parks people to move the fence.
California Sage Grouse are at the extreme limits of their range and will surely go extinct. 50 + years ago I shot a Sage Grouse in some hills near Loyalton. There haven't been Sage Grouse there in decades. They don't need to hasten their demise by being hunted. DFW is resisting, as hard as they can, the listing of the species as being Endangered as it will have major effects on grazing practices and you don't mess with John Ascuaga and others who graze in the birds range.
