I have eaten a lot of sage chickens. I used to live out by The Craters of the Moon . We started seeing a decline in the bird numbers in the 90’s. Nothing had changed as far as more cattle on BLM rangeland or more people out there running around. There was no big increase in the number of hunters. Maybe varmints increased. Maybe pollution was a factor, but at the time they did a study that said the air out there was some of the cleanest in the country.
I think it is merely their time to go. Adapt or die.
So all this about saving the sage grouse is a lie. Another big fat lie.
The BLM, the EPA, in fact most of the big government agencies need to go extinct too.
There is a drive on to take federal lands in western states and put them under state control. That needs to happen.
We used to have a lot of pheasants.. then road salts started to kill them off,, so they had us use studded t’ars instead to help save the birds,, so the studs ripped the roads up something fierce.. but Hey.. who’s gonna worry about the chips of the chewed up road getting into the birds,, so .. ya never know .. management has a flaw built in.. man. ;-]