doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Declining ruffed grouse population studies?

Neither strip mining or clear-cutting has completely stopped in Ohio. Coal mining has diminished due to the anti-coal burning policies of anti-gun Democrats, but it has not stopped completely. There are several other minerals still actively mined in Ohio including limestone and dolomite, sand and gravel, sandstone and conglomerate, clay, shale, and salt.

There is no doubt that there has been a shift in Ohio forests over the years. But that has always been true of forests everywhere. There is actually a large increase in forested land as a lot of former farm land is reverting back to wooded land. Overall, the forest has become more mature, but there is still a very active logging industry that includes both selective cutting and clear-cutting. Here's a pretty good breakdown of what is actually happening over the entire state:

https://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/resource_bulletins/pdfs/scanned/OCR/ne_rb75.pdf

And here is one of the recent complaints about the clear-cutting that often happens on both private and state lands:

https://thenewpolitical.com/2017/02/21/opinion-clear-cutting-problem-trump-unlikely-fix/

It is in succession stages of growth that we have the best grouse habitat, and there is still no shortage of early and mid-succession regrowth on logged out areas and abandoned farm land. I've also heard the nonsense about one very hard winter that virtually eliminated quail in southern Ohio in the late 1970's. If that was the only cause, it would seem that it should be fairly easy to re-establish a breeding population when the country is supposedly in a global warming trend.

I have not hunted in Ohio for about 10 years, but I can say there is a lot of very thick cover and good habitat in the eastern part of Ohio. Southeast Ohio has some of the thickest cover imaginable, and the areas I hunted had large areas of immature trees along with memorable amounts of blackberries and multiflora rose thickets. I do not think the tremendous decline of ruffed grouse in Ohio (or Pennsylvania) has anything at all to do with a lack of good habitat, either because there is no logging, or because small farms have largely been replaced with the huge monocrop type of farming seen in the midwestern states.

I won't say that West Nile Virus is not a factor. But I know the big decline started well before we ever heard of WNV. It was easy to place the blame on the 11 year population cycle of ruffed grouse. But when the peak years came back and there were still very few grouse, it became apparent that we had a serious problem.

I'm perplexed. I'm fairly certain northern Minnesota has both raptors and coyotes (and even wolves where I'm hunting). Heck, I've even personally seen at least two Fisher cats on the trails up there and yet...the birds seem to be doing quite well. I would venture to guess that West Nile is even up there as well. What am I missing here? I have read that certain species require a minimum population density to propagate successfully, a "tipping point" of sorts. Is that a possible explanation? I do know that Minnesota birds are the Canadian varient (Bonasa ????, which is slightly bigger and more grey-phase dominant) could that be a factor?

"Tipping point," also called an Allee effect, is when the system (in this case roofed grouse numbers) is drawn so far from their normal equilibrium that they cannot recover and drift towards a new equilibrium which can be a smaller or greater number or none at all. Definitely UNlikely in this case unless numbers get VERY low.

Northern MN has always been full of predators, but roofed grouse numbers have always been more reflective of things like winter/spring weather, ice storms, and so on. Whether West Nile is up there, I don't know. It certainly seems likely. It appears to be almost everywhere at some level now.

Armchair declarations of what is wrong with any wildlife population is likely to be wrong more often than not. Not that such a detail like that could ever affect the internet from pontificating.

Someday soonish I need to get back up there and chase them again, before I'm dogless or kneeless.

northern mn and northern me are too cold too long to support wild turkey infestations...bottom line, less turkeys means more grouse...

Ed, that's because in Europe, they've traditionally employed game keepers (sometimes even with assistants to help them) who shoot or trap anything that might kill a game bird. (Raptors are now protected . . . but as a Scottish keeper once told me: "Aye, they are . . . but they often meet with terrible accidents!") Traditionally, this was to provide the highest quality sport on His Lordship's estate. Today, with driven shooting being a business, it's to provide the highest quality sport to the paying customers. Previously, His Lordship paid the cost of predator control. Today, those who shoot driven birds pay for predator control.

I haven't hunted northern MN so can't comment on turkey numbers. But they're all over the place in northern WI. It's my understanding that the WI DNR thought the state would never have turkeys north of Highway 8. I live north of Highway 8 and I have a flock that wanders through my yard frequently. For that matter, they're quite common in Michigan's UP. Part of the reason, I think, is people who put out corn and other food for deer in the winter. I'm sure the turkeys also take advantage of that.

In the USA, we were fortunate for a long time to get predator control for free, courtesy of trappers and furbearer hunters. Currently, as suggested elsewhere, it's become politically incorrect to value one species above another--even though it's the game species rather than the predators that pay the bill where wildlife is concerned. Which means, to me, that game species are clearly "more valuable" than the critters that kill them or destroy their nests.

too bad none of our state hunting licensing fees and federal excise taxes are used for game bird predator control...

I have seen quite a few turkey incidentally in Montana, both out on the plains and up to about seven thousand feet in the mountains. They seem to hold up just fine to some wintery conditions. I don't know what the harvest numbers are, but long range recreational shooting seems to have created a predator hunting trend, at least for coyotes.

Good point as there are no turkeys where I'm hunting grouse. Interesting...

Don't say that! Don't want to break up the internet mythology that deer and turkeys and god know what all, are responsible for quail/grouse/pheasant/whatever declines (along with the always, and ubiquitous, dumber-than-rocks game management biologists).

Well....the only difference I can point-to between the two scenarios, other than significantly more-severe winters, would be the complete absence of wild turkeys. There used to be moose up there as well but a pestilence known locally as "brain-worm" seems to have eradicated them. There also aren't any quail locally, but there are sharptails if that means anything. There was an episode on "Nature" a while back that was titled "My life as a turkey". Besides it being a beautifully well-done story about a wildlife biologist raising a flock of wild birds in Florida and keeping them wild, it made me keenly aware of just how voraciously efficient they are at foraging. Anything small in their path was fair game as they would vacuum-up anything and everything they came across.