OAR 635-140-0005: Population Management

In accordance with the Wildlife Policy (ORS 496.012), the Department’s primary population management goal is to restore, maintain and enhance populations of greater sage-grouse such that multiple uses of populations and their habitats can continue. (1) Policy: Considering greater sage-grouse populations in Oregon oscillate over 6 to 12-year cycles, manage greater sage-grouse statewide to maintain or enhance their distribution and abundance oscillating around the 2003 spring breeding population level, approximately 53,000 birds, over the next 50 years. (2) Objectives: Consistent with the population management policy, manage Oregon’s greater sage-grouse populations to maintain stable or increasing population trends statewide and at the PAC-scale. Population trends are assessed between nadirs (troughs) of the population cycles at the statewide and PAC-scales.