(SNN) As some of you may know, The Sage has a crack coterie of freelance humorists, satirists, parodists, one or two Methodists and a hard-working staff of both disgruntled and semi-gruntled employees. 

Working individually, in small claques, or as part of elite, highly-trained Grupenshticklascrivenmensch teams, The Sage provides the high class comedy you see before you. This free comedy is distributed on a need to know basis to Canadians, U.S. Americans as if, and to thousands of therapists, pedicurists and other evildoers who sneak over the Mexican border while Donald Trump is blinded by his own hair.

What you may not know, and if you know what’s good for you that should remember to forget, is that The Sage also has a bird—a Mascot if you will. (And knowing you, you probably will).

By a “bird”, I don’t mean the many middle-finger birds sent in by faithful readers. We’re talking about an actual bird, one of those real, live, flying poop-bombers that stalk your Buick right after you’ve washed it. 

The Sage’s bird is called The Sage Grouse and it hangs out on prairies that range from the state of Oregon to  the state of North Dakota—if indeed North Dakota is actually a state.  (As an aside, Oregon’s new tourism slogan is: “Oregon--Come for the weed. Stay for the, um … ”)

Sage Grice are also found in Canadian Provinces such as Saskatchewan and Alberta, and in parts of the Gordon Lightfoot Territories. 

A recent article in an American newspaper—which has requested anonymity but whose initials are The Los Angeles Times—reported that this doughty little bird comes in three varieties, the Sage Sea Grouse, the Greater Sage Grouse, and The Sage Groucho, a title shared with Grupenshticklascrivenmensches Chris McKerracher, Dixie Ohlander and Yours Truly.

Each Spring the male Sea Groucho entertains females with a mating dance that involves a puffed up chest, flared tail feathers and picking fights with competitors. No wait, that’s me.

But I digress. 

The problem is the Sage Grouse has been pulling a disappearing act. Used to be millions and millions of them. Now there’s only a few hundred hundred thousand, reports the article. Among the reasons listed for the decline are reduced habitats due to development, prairie fires, drought, Climate change, oil drilling, and an unexpected increase in Nicki Minaj albums.

As one Oregonian near Eugene said, “Dude… like those birdies got the flock out of here,” which is pretty clever considering he was smoking the wrong end of his Bong at the time.

A distraught North Dakota farm hand asked, “Are you sure there’s no North Dakota?  And will you help me find my other hand?”

There were other comments, but I forgot to write them down.

What is unusual is the way opposing interests are going about saving the Sage Grouse. If it is placed on the Endangered Species list, the bird would undoubtedly be saved, but at great expense and with many people unhappy about the costs and restrictions. But if the bird were to die out completely, it would have massive repercussions up and down the food chain including this publication’s cafeteria, Chez Ptomaine.

So, according to the LATimes article, oil interests, developers, environmentalists and other organizations that often oppose each other are working together to save the bird.   

I know, I know, I’m surprised too. Can we please return to disruptive, antagonistic politics again? What do you think most of the stuff
we write about here is inspired by?

For more information, here’s a link to the article: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sej-sage-grouse-20150921-story.html .

Image: Bureau of Land Management's flickr photostream. Some rights reserved. Original photo located here.