doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ruff Grouse being considered an in danger species

If you don�t have Ruffed grouse in central Michigan, you don�t have suitable habitat. If you don�t have suitable habitat, you need to make your DNR aware that it concerns you. 9 out of 10 chicks in a clutch don�t survive their first year, whether they are hunted, or not.

I am far more worried about a few mosquito born illnesses that have showed up in this part of the world, and what their effect on all bird populations will be, then overhunting.

Best,
Ted

Absolutely. In the 90s Iowa was pretty good at winning it too. But no more.

Hunting doesn't endanger pheasant populations. Cock hunting just doesn't have that sort of effect. Loss of CRP and conversion of fields of set aside to strips certainly had bad effects. Some nasty winters sandwiching some horrible, wet springs helped create a perfect storm for their decline. And now, some of the pesticides may be the coup de gr�ce. Anything that gets in front of Big Ag get steamrolled.

The steep decline in ringneck pheasant numbers in Pennsylvania started when the Pa. Game Commission began allowing the harvest of hens. When the inevitable decline happened, they refused to reverse their stupid policy, or admit their mistake. Instead, they blamed the decline on other things such as "clean farming".

It has now reached a point where native birds are pretty much extinct, and pheasant hunting is almost entirely put-and-take of stocked birds on State Game Lands. Stocked birds that do not get shot mostly become coyote food. The attempt to replace ringneck with Sichaun Pheasants failed miserably. I started hunting when Pa. was loaded with pheasants, and many times saw flocks of 40 or more birds. Once upon a time, it wasn't that hard to shoot a limit of cocks in a couple hours... without dogs. It just seems like the more wildlife biologists we have tinkering with things, the worse the situation gets.

Edit-- I will never understand how the same people who cling to the idea of global warming can also blame low bird numbers on exceptionally hard winters. And oh my gosh... who ever heard of wet weather in Spring?

Keith, you clearly don't understand climate change.

You see, when we point to an extra cold winter as evidence that this man made climate change thing is a load of BS , we are told by the members of the MMGW religion "That's weather, dummy!". But when that same cold winter can be blamed for something like low bird numbers, those same members of that same religion will point to the cold winter and say "See! Climate change!" .

Canvasback, I don't know if you are aware but our former Premier of British Columbia, went to the Government of Canada under the Freedom of Information Act to inquire about chem-trails. The Government of Canada replied to him that it was called Geoengineering and that they were aware that it was being done. They said they weren't involved as a Government but were continuing to monitor it.

So there is Man Made Climate Change but it's being engineered. So to what end? Create the problem, wait for the reaction, then present a solution? But on a Global scale. Pretty interesting.

Geoengineering

ruffed grouse are on the way to extinction due to an excess of two predators...specifically the eastern coyote and the wild turkey...significantly reduce the numbers of these two varmints, and we will see a resurgence in grouse numbers...

ed, you are dumber than a box of rocks.

I grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. As a small boy we had quail, rabbits and most small game in abundance. Ducks and geese in great numbers. Few pheasant on the Shore, mostly in the upper areas. Deer numbers were decent and there were zero turkeys. Fast forwards to today and Deer are like fleas and turkeys are where the never were, but quail are rare as hens teeth, Rabbits are gone, small game in general is just not to be found. And I am afraid ducks and geese are in ever decreasing numbers. One goose per day type numbers. Wont be long before they just close it completely.

But the DNR hail the numbers of deer and turkeys as proof their efforts are making things fantastic. As far as I am concerned the DNR could not organize as wet dream in a whore house. God help any game the DNR tries to mismanage.

Poor BrentD. He not only doesn't have a dime to support this forum where he spends so much time, he also doesn't have a brain.





www td

And there is a reason that many coyote hunters are finding turkey yelps to be a most effective call:

Always has been a "contest" in a certain sense, RWTF. For South Dakota, pheasant hunting is big business. We're talking about a state with a population of a bit over 800,000 with over 140,000 pheasant hunters most years--most of them nonresidents. (Over 100,000 of them in really good years.) That's a significant economic impact.

Your friend bagged 25 grouse and lost 11 hit and not recovered? I find that hard to believe on grouse. They're neither that hard to kill if you hit them, nor are they that hard for a dog to recover, compared to pheasants--which are much harder to kill and much more of a challenge for a dog to recover if they come down with two good legs. I've kept track of pheasants my dogs have failed to recover for 40+ seasons. When I was spending a lot more time hunting them than I do now--back when Iowa had a lot more birds than today--most of my dogs averaged 20+ birds successfully recovered for every one lost. Over a six season span, during Iowa's best years in the early 90's, my very best dog recovered 491 pheasants while losing 12. That's a ratio of 1 lost for every 41 recovered. I've heard of pheasant dogs that have never lost a bird (but I remain skeptical!)--but that's as close as one of my dogs ever came.