Will We Finally Be Getting More Grouse?
GREAT photo! (Credit: MN Star Tribune/BillMarchel.com)
The answer for growing more ruffed grouse is the same for all gamebirds: more habitat. No secret there. And in the case of grouse, that means cut trees.
Cut ’em! They’ll grow back! And in the meantime, grouse and basically everything that lives in a forest will benefit.
But that’s not as easy nor logical as it seems. Thanks to years of what amounts to brainwashing, rad greenie groups have convinced the entire United States – maybe just most people and most governments – that cutting trees is “bad.”
It’s “visual pollution,” it’s ugly, it damages streams, whatever. We’ve heard it all repeatedly. And government agencies have gotten banged over the head so many times by lawsuits relating tree-cutting to this or that piece of legislation (these laws are not coordinated, btw) that they’re gunshy of going against the greenie grain.
It’s all a big bummer for fans of the wily forest chicken – because national ruffed grouse and woodcock habitat-creation plans have been sitting there, ready to go, for years, but since they require cutting trees have not been implemented…yet.
Maybe things’ll change soon.
Recently, a bunch of hunt/fish groups weighed in on new planning regulations for our nation’s forests and grasslands. A statement titled “The Buck Stops Here” was signed by 64 such groups, in which they “strongly assert sportsmen’s priorities for managing America’s 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands.”
Grouse are even mentioned in the first bullet point of that statement:
> Require forest plans to include multiple-use plan components that show how they will provide habitat conditions for relatively common species such as deer, elk, grouse and trout that are enjoyed and used by the public….
Cool!
Odd is that while Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever are signatories to the doc (pdf), the Ruffed Grouse Society isn’t.
Anyhow, we hope the feds can get with the program here, and the greenies too since all these acres of mature forests are doing more ecological harm than good.
Or maybe we should push to have the grouse listed as a “threatened” species to get the greenies to sue for cutting trees. Irony!
They need to have an ornithological understanding:
Category: Forest Management, Pheasants Forever, Quail Forever, Ruffed Grouse, Ruffed Grouse Society
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OK, first post, that video is funny.
I heard more drumming over this past weekend than I have for years. Things look good for this fall.
Habitat, habitat, habitat. The three H’s of critters…
The Outdoorsmen have to make their voice be heard. I have corresponded with the USFS on the Forest management plans in Northern Wisconsin. to let them know that we (hunters) support a management plan that is good for many species of flora and fauna.
Every radical environmenalist should read Gordon Guillion’s book “Managing Forests for Diversity”, the forest with the highest biodiversity is the new growth forest. Since forest fires are rare and quickly extinguished, the only way to achieve new growth forest is thru clear cutting.Heaven Forbid, you tell people that you are in favor of clear cutting forests. The radical enviromentalists have a bird.(Pardon the pun.)
You have to take the time to teach people about the natural life cycle of forests ( softwood- hardwood- conifer) and how the ecosystem changes with each stage in the life cycle. All the true outdoorsman wants to do is foster the ful circle of life in the forest, all the envirementalist wants to do is watch trees grow and diversity of species perish under the canopy.
I better stop now, otherwise I will get going on wolves. another sore subject.
I am a Pro Hunting / Pro Logging evironmentalist.
Save the rain forest, harvest american timber.