Greater sage-grouse chick killed by Great Basin gopher snake

Abstract

Despite extensive range overlap between Great Basin gopher snakes ( Pituophis catenifer deserticola ) and Greater Sage-Grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ) within sagebrush ecosystems, there are few documented predator–prey interactions between these species. Although gopher snakes have been observed preying on nests of other prairie grouse, studies that used video-monitoring at sage-grouse nests found gopher snakes unable to consume sage-grouse eggs and reported just a single instance of a snake consuming a <1-day-old chick in a nest bowl. On the morning of 4 June 2018 at 04:55, we observed a Great Basin gopher snake killing, constricting, and attempting to consume a 19-day-old sage-grouse chick in the foothills of the Owyhee Mountains, southwestern Idaho. This observation is the first record of a gopher snake killing a sage-grouse chick during the late brood-rearing period and highlights the likelihood that large gopher snakes are a cause of chick mortality from hatch day to at least 19 days post-hatch.