Game and Fish closes sage grouse hunting in northeast Wyoming

The Game and Fish Department plans to ban sage grouse hunting in most of northeast Wyoming. Parts of eastern Wyoming are already off limits, and now, sage grouse hunting will be prohibited in Sheridan, Johnson, Campbell and Weston counties as well. I spoke with Tom Christiansen, the sage grouse coordinator for Game and Fish. He says the agency is making the change in large part because of public concern over dwindling sage grouse populations. But he also says stopping hunting won’t solve the problem, because hunting doesn’t actually affect sage grouse populations that much.