Driving through Michigan, a state known for one university’s love for an over-grown weasel and as a hot destination for sportsmen and women, I came upon a portion of a public wildlife area that appeared to be devastated. Literally devoid of most trees and shrubs, it looked like a tornado had ripped through, and a giant vacuum had been used to clear most of the debris. I wasn’t surprised.
On my way to fish the Little Manistee, I’d heard about the area and wanted to see it for myself. It’s part of Michigan DNR’s GEMS program, the acronym for “Grouse Enhancement Management Sites.” They’re located in remote areas and vary in size from a few hundred to several thousand acres and include various forest management techniques, including clearing some areas of timber to allow a natural succession of aspens and other important tree species.
As a young man in Columbiana County, Ohio, I had grown to become an avid angler and bird hunter. While the majority of our state’s warmer streams didn’t hold the typical trout habitat, there were plenty of smallmouth bass lurking in the Little Beaver Creek that tested my tackle as readily as any big brown.
Ruffed grouse
For bird hunting, my game bag was often filled with a couple of rooster pheasants, though their populations were definitely feeling the pinch of changing farming patterns. My favorite though, was the ruffed grouse, the real king of game birds — a gallinaceous species that shunned farm ground for backwoods and greenbrier patches.
In the late 1970s, my dog, who sometimes had trouble locating his own tail, would find and flush more than a half-dozen every trip — sometimes a lot more.
While smallmouth bass still thrive, upland bird hunting in Ohio has changed dramatically. Like much of the Midwest, pheasant populations have suffered steep declines due to habitat loss. Conservation practices, such as the Conservation Reserve Program, available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Services Agency and encouraged by state wildlife agencies and conservation partners like Pheasants Forever, have made a difference. Birds can still be found in these rebound areas, and I hope that ball keeps bouncing.
Unfortunately, ruffed grouse aren’t faring as well. Their populations have been slipping throughout much of their range. In some states, such as Ohio and Indiana, the slide has been steep and the landing hard. Indiana has chosen to protect the bird and Ohio has limited the season to a token of what it once was. This year, it’s scheduled to run from Nov. 1 to Dec. 1 — a far cry from the three-month-long seasons of my youth.
Cause of decline
Why are these declines occurring? First of all, it’s not hunting. Regulated hunting concentrates on only removing a small portion of the sustainable population and is regulated appropriately. There are other important factors that are impacting ruffed grouse populations throughout its range.
Like the pheasant, habitat deterioration is one. In the pheasant’s case, that issue was caused by changes in farming practices and land-use patterns. For Ohio’s ruffed grouse, it’s habitat old age. Much of the bird’s preferred forested habitat is found in vast stretches of our national and state forests and ODNR’s park and wildlife areas — all public ground.
Unfortunately, much of the property has been left to grow into over-maturity, known as old growth forest. They’re a great place for squirrels, woodpeckers and turkeys but not ideal for harboring any type of grouse population.
Unfortunately, we created the problem. We’ve been programmed since we were kids to misunderstand timber management. We see timbering and clear cutting as poor public land management, and we all want to help Smokey stomp out fires — even controlled burns.
Many politicians, urged by their sometimes-misinformed constituents, join in a sort of a paraphrased “Frozen” chorus of “Let it Grow.” Unless there is a widespread change in how we manage forests, I don’t see things improving much for old “Ruff.” To be informed, we need to learn more.
Learn more
The book “Appalachian Ruffed Grouse: Ecology and Management,” published in 2011, takes a look at the Appalachian grouse populations, conceding that they’re somewhat different than those found further north.
“Appalachian grouse lack aspen trees for food and cover, which Gordon Gullion, a leading expert on grouse during his lifetime, considered their prime habitat. Nevertheless, ruffed grouse are adaptable birds that have thrived in Appalachia for thousands of years.”
Game managers now have a grouse-dedicated study that explores the perils of the bird’s management in what northern states would refer to as marginal areas. The study looked at ruffed grouse populations on twelve sites in eight states of the central Appalachian region — Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Maryland.
Contributors caught 3,118 wild ruffed grouse and fitted them with radio transmitters to help determine the grouse’s daily and seasonal activities. They investigated survival, causes of mortality, nesting and brooding ecology, food habits, nutrition, and dispersal.
One of the many areas discussed was predation, including human predation which we call hunting. Researchers discovered that hunting accounted for 12% of grouse mortality and concluded that it didn’t have a direct impact on ruffed grouse (population) survival, though it did have some influence on the bird’s home range and habitat selection — sometimes being driven from prime survival areas into less hospitable ones (in the case of late-winter/season hunting).
Other hunters, primarily Cooper’s hawks, great horned owls and bobcats, accounted for about 44% (avian) and 25% (mammals) mortality. The study also recognized that better habitat increased grouse production and the ability to avoid predation’s dinner plate.
Disease
Unfortunately, there’s more to the grouse problem than just predation and habitat. It’s suspected that zoonotic diseases — especially West Nile Virus — is impacting the bird. Katie Mace, writing for the Wildlife Leadership Academy, wrote: “Introduced to North America in 1999, West Nile Virus … is astonishing in its virulence … the virus is maintained in nature through a cyclical transmission between mosquitoes and birds, with birds acting as a vector … One avian species that is particularly susceptible…is the ruffed grouse; since the disease’s introduction to North America, this grouse species has experienced significant population decline. Based on the Ruffed Grouse Society’s recent research initiative with Colorado State University, ruffed grouse are very vulnerable to the virus and suffer high mortality rates. In Pennsylvania … peaks in West Nile Virus infection occurred from 2001-2004 and 2012-2014, with each spike dramatically reducing grouse populations … just one year after West Nile Virus was introduced to North America, a New York based environmental agency received an alarming 150 ruffed grouse carcasses from across the state — collected by ordinary citizens … A great percentage of those carcasses were found to be carrying West Nile Virus.”
Pennsylvania attacked that problem with extensive research and found that the key to reducing West Nile grouse mortality is through — drum roll, please — improving habitat. Biologists discovered that by providing the bird with its preferred habitat of young, diverse forests helped to reduce deaths from the disease. It seems these improved management areas act as a cushion that allow grouse to bounce back and recover. “The Pennsylvania Game Commission has strengthened the forestry department of their agency, hiring more forestry staff, creating a clear focus on aspen management plans, and allocating … additional (funding) for forestry management. In addition, the Game Commission has instituted a ruffed grouse habitat management review step for all game land comprehensive plans,” Mace noted.
While the issues of dwindling ruffed grouse numbers plague many of the states in its home range, there looks to be some remedies to help alleviate many of the issues they face. While West Nile and other surfacing zoonotic diseases remain a serious concern, and as predation is monitored by four-legged, two-winged and two-legged foragers, we know that quality habitat remains as a top remedy and should be the top priority in ruffed grouse management.
Sounds like Pennsylvania is using the kind of GEMS playbook that Michigan is using … bet they didn’t need to swipe those play calls. I hope that Ohio DNR is working to discover a GEM of a game plan, too.
“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.”
— Peter F. Drucker
