New York Catskills grouse report
 

So far this season has been very bad. In 8 days of hunting I put in 38 hours and had 13 grouse flushes for .34 flushes an hour. Out of those I only heard most. I didn't get a single shot at any , my partner shot at 1 bird which he missed. We also only put up 3 Woodcock and got 1 which was the only shot I took in all 8 days of hunting. Hope better days are coming, I have been hunting grouse for 50 years, the birds disappeared from southern New York and now the Catskills seems to be going down the same road.

sounds like ahard hunt with nothing to show for it.....i have traveled that same road....charlie

So, James, have they quit logging in the Catskills as they have in so many eastern areas? I lived through the same thing in SE Ohio. Court injunctions from so-called environmentalists who had gotten their ideas of what a healthy forest should look like from a calendar photo stopped the harvesting of trees almost completely...and...no grouse or other wildlife that needs early successional forests.

I don't see much logging on state land, they do on private land. Where I hunt there is plenty of food and cover, I think it's the hawks ,owls ,and turkeys and maybe the latest problem, west nile virus. You hear and read many reasons, for the most part it's been a long slide down, what has changed in 40 years is the large increase in hawks and owls and the reintroduction of turkeys.

I still believe that predators are the single biggest cause of the population decline. We can't change wet springs, or go back and undo the reintroduction of wild turkey, but state biologists need to acknowledge the issue and open up the season and bag limits. Lottery? Give me a break.

Also habitat and clear cutting makes all the difference!

Among many factors, the advent of selective cutting to appease tree huggers has led to a less than ideal re-generation of habitat. Reading Gillion it takes a certain threshold of stem density to make the cover suitable to grouse. No habitat = no birds.

I don't buy the predation answer. There is a natural balance between predators and prey. If there is a lot of prey, predators will move in. If there is a lack of prey, the predator population will drop or move out. Perhaps man has been too efficient, and therefore the game population is dropping. Now, following my thoughts above, the hunter population is dropping I always look first at habitat

At least some of the problem is the lack of a fur market. Nobody trapping or coon hunting anymore as hides cannot be given away. We are overrun with all sorts of vermin and they all raid nests.

The avian predator problem we had in my hunting area is virtually gone. I have yet to see a goshawk or a barred owl this season at all. The grouse numbers there have been diminishing for a few years now but this year we are seeing far fewer than even last year... but the avian predators have moved on..... or have succumbed to WNV themselves... :cool:





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