Lloyd could tell you that logging and timber harvesting is alive and well in his native state of Pennsylvania. There is no shortage of large tracts of mature forest that gets selective cutting or clear cutting. Yet ruffed grouse numbers have declined significantly over the last 20 -30 years.
It has gotten bad enough that the late grouse season was cancelled a couple years ago. I personally think that the introduction of the Eastern Coyote into Pennsylvania has had the greatest effect on reducing the population of grouse and other small game species. It would be hard to blame herbicides for lower grouse numbers since grouse do not live in areas that are sprayed. Our Game Commission has done a good job of implementing things that have contributed to reducing the overall number of active hunters, so we sure can't blame the decline on over-harvesting. But our illustrious Game Commission also is flush with cash from timbering, gas, and oil drilling, etc., on State Game Lands. So they don't seem to be at all responsive to the hunters who still purchase licenses.
