National prominence
Gunnison sage-grouse
Gunnison sage-grouse is a sagebrush-obligate species restricted to a handful of small populations in western Colorado and eastern Utah. It has been federally listed as threatened since 2014, and no hunting season exists anywhere in its range.
How to hunt Gunnison sage-grouse
There is no legal hunting season for Gunnison sage-grouse anywhere in its range, and everything in this profile is a hypothetical extrapolation, not observed hunting practice. If a hunt existed, it would most plausibly occur in the same kind of open, sagebrush-obligate terrain with minimal concealing cover that greater sage-grouse occupies, since the two share the same genus-level habitat dependency; the species' own range (the Gunnison Basin in Colorado, plus small satellite populations in western Colorado and San Juan County, Utah) is itself high-elevation sagebrush country of that character, but far smaller in extent than greater sage-grouse's own broad Intermountain West range.
No source addresses shooting range, since no legal hunt exists to observe. If one existed, the same open, unconcealed terrain would likely produce a similarly long wild-flush distance, but the actual taken-shot range would probably run shorter, given this species' smaller body.
There is no current legal method to describe. Before the 1999 closure, Gunnison sage-grouse was hunted the same way greater sage-grouse still is: walked-up over pointing or flushing dogs, or spot-and-stalk using the open terrain's own sightlines, under the same permit and quota model, since the two weren't even split into separate species until 2000.
What changes through the season
- No legal hunting season exists anywhere for this species
Gunnison sage-grouse is federally threatened and state-endangered in Colorado, its stronghold, and is not on Colorado's or Utah's list of huntable species. Hunting for this species ended in 1999, before the two sage-grouse forms were even formally split into separate species, and well before the 2014 federal threatened listing made the closure permanent. Its range is also unusually small and fragmented, confined to the Gunnison Basin and a handful of satellite populations in western Colorado and San Juan County, Utah, which makes a hunt reopening in the foreseeable future unlikely.
- Substantially smaller-bodied than greater sage-grouse
This bird is roughly a third smaller than greater sage-grouse, with males weighing 2-5.5 lb versus greater sage-grouse's 5.5-7 lb; that gap is the basis for scaling every recommendation above one step lighter.
Where it is open, and what the survey says
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