But What About Our Ruffed Grouse…?
 

“Over the next three decades”???

What about the immediate problem in the Northeast of the radical disappearances ou our ruffed grouse? We’ve been talking about this for about a decade and such a program here would certainly be a benefit. These days I see more barred owls while hunting in Vermont than I see ruffed grouse, even when hunting with my Gracie.


.

Grouse numbers have plummeted here in PA while we've seen a major increase in land and avian predators. Chicks in particular are especially vulnerable. Hardly anyone traps anymore and hawks/owls have been totally protected for decades now. Anyone driving through PA on the Interstates when the leaves are off can hardly go one mile without seeing a hawk(s) sitting on a tree eyeing for its next meal. There was a time and not so long ago when our Game Commission called for small game hunters to shoot these “vicious predators on sight”. And that was in its official publication. Loss of habitat is total joke propaganda pushed by the RGS and PGC and methinks the WNV is at most a minor impactor. Sure, you can find a grouse or two here and there, but sorry to say I don't see any real hope for grouse recovery on the horizon.

Dean, this plan seems to make sense but I doubt that it will ever see implementation. I would be surprised if the tree huggers were not already calling there lawyers to begin filing suits to block it.

Frank and Harry are 100% right, I have been saying the same thing for years. The real problem is hawks and owls plus other predators. The loss of habitat is BS

Our hunting club is in eastern Wayne county NY a very rural area mostly apple orchards, row crops, mixed hardwoods and extensive wetlands. Fishers, coyotes, hawks and owls have eliminated every ground nesting bird, our turkey population has crashed. Back in the 70' the lake plains of NY were a pheasant hunting meca. . Now the ducks in our part of the flyway are in deep trouble. Mallards number are down 50% in the last few years. The wetland habitat in our area of central NY has doubled in the last ten years but duck numbers keep trending down. Why?????

Another factor that the fish and game people don't want to talk about is the rise in turkey populations. In the south our wild quail have all but disappeared. So have a lot of ground nesting birds like meadow larks. If you watch a flock of turkeys move through a field,they are constantly eating. A quail or grouse chick is no bigger that most insects. This plus the increase in other predators makes it hard for any ground nesting birds to increase.

This thread certainly is an eye opener.

I don’t have the opportunity to hunt grouse—simply because they are gone. If I saw one, I wouldn’t shoot it, due to them being uncommon.

I have been brainwashed, hoodwinked, call it what you want—to believe the decline in the grouse population was due to changing habitat. Because that’s what the powers that be want you to think. Meanwhile, not a day goes by where you don’t see a bird of prey somewhere. I even saw an American Eagle within a third of a mile of my house within the last week.

Maybe it’s time they rethink policy and thin more of these birds of prey?

They need a program like that for hawks and eagles down here to help wild quail