LETTERS
J. Robert Gunderson Billings
You are correct about the mislabeled photo; the bird is a dusky (blue) grouse. As for the name change, that became official in , when the American Ornithologists’ Union committee on classification and nomenclature announced that the genus Dendragapus comprises two species. New DNA evidence published in showed that the blue grouse of the Rocky Mountains and those of the Pacific Coast and Sierra Nevada ranges inhabit separate, isolated habitats with no gene flow between the two populations. As a result of these findings, what was once the blue grouse throughout the West is now the dusky grouse of the Rocky Mountains and the sooty grouse of the Pacific Coast and Sierra Nevada ranges. The most obvious differences between the sooty and dusky grouse are the bare skin patches that show on males. The patch is yellow on the sooty grouse and tends to be red on the dusky grouse. Dusky grouse also lack the distinct tail band of the sooty grouse, and the two species have different mating calls and other courtship behaviors. Bird specialists first proposed splitting the blue grouse into two species in based on observable differences. However, not until recent DNA advances have scientists been able to prove that the different-looking grouse do not interbreed and are thus separate species.
Snow machines too close Your recent article “Clinging to Existence” (September– October) describes the downward trend of mountain goats, a species entirely dependent on small, specialized winter habitat niches. It should be a wake-up call for Montana land managers, wildlife biologists, and concerned citizens to take action immediately to reverse mountain goat population declines. For a long time, public land managers in Montana and other western states have zoned snowmobiles out of important deer and elk winter ranges. However, little has been done to confine “high-marking” and extremeterrain snowmobiling, done by a relatively small number of snowmobilers into previously secure mountain goat sanctuaries. A single windblown ridge may sustain a mountain goat for the entire winter. As a biologist, I once witnessed a nanny and kid that had spent a week or more after a heavy snowstorm under a small 50-footlong ledge, with little to eat but still able to conserve energy. While winter forage under such extreme conditions is meager, the conservation of energy combined with
intermixing of clones on the landscape is common….” Gale Dupree Loyalton, CA
access to forage are necessary ingredients for winter survival. Surely state and federal biologists must agree that goats pushed to expend energy to flee snowmobile disturbance into less desirable habitat adversely affects their chances for survival. Isn’t it time for FWP biologists to consolidate winter mountain goat habitat maps and request that land management agencies prohibit snowmobiling within a half mile of these occupied and historic habitats?
Quaking aspen clarification I am writing regarding your Outdoors Portrait of the quaking aspen in the September– October issue. It is commonly believed that a single aspen grove is one clone, as you write. However, according to a technical paper published by the U.S. Forest Service in 2006, “...studies have shown that
“This is mostly what we do at elk camp anyway, so we figured we’d save money on gas and just have it here.”
| November–December | fwp.mt.gov/mtoutdoors
Mystery slipper I found this lady’s-slipper orchid by Yogo Creek, north of Big Timber, just after reading the orchid article in your magazine (“Hunting the Elusive Orchidaceae,” July–August). When I got home and compared it to the pictures, I didn’t think it looked like any of the ones in the article. Can you tell me what type it is? Amanda Olvera Ashland
Greg Munther, Ph.D. Missoula
TOM DICKSON
Mislabeled photo confusing On page 14 of your last issue (September–October), you show a picture of a bird labeled “spruce grouse,” but if I’m not mistaken, the bare red patch shows it is actually a blue grouse (what you now call dusky grouse). By the way, what genius decided on that new name? I like the old one better.
Steve Cooper, vegetation ecologist for the Montana Natural Heritage Program, replies: I would say the orchid is Cypripedium montanum (mountain lady’s-slipper); it looks a good deal like C. candidum (white lady’s-slipper), but according to the PLANTS USDA database, C. candidum does not occur in Montana. It’s primarily a plant of tallgrass prairie, ranging from Ontario south through the Great Lakes states. Identifying a plant solely on the basis of one picture is a bit risky, but I think in this case we are on fairly safe ground. There is a lot of variability within single species, and species also vary in appearance depending on the time of year—all of which contribute to confusion in identification.
