Ruffed Grouse
Southwest Wisconsin landowners
can help increase ruffed grouse population
By Ted Pennekamp
On Sept. 26, a workshop was held in Crawford County to give landowners information about what they can do to help increase the population of ruffed grouse in Southwestern Wisconsin. The event was sponsored by the Ruffed Grouse Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Kickapoo Woods Cooperative and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The workshop was held on the Tim and Linda Eisele property near Seneca.
In the 1970s and 1980s the ruffed grouse population was quite large in Southwest Wisconsin, but various factors have led to a great decline in the years since.
“The fundamental reason for declining ruffed grouse numbers in our area is a declining habitat base due to our forests simply growing older,” said Scott Walter, the regional wildlife biologist of the Ruffed Grouse Society. “The incredible abundance of grouse into the 1980s was due to the abandonment of small farms and removal of livestock from formerly wooded hillside pastures. People interested in the decline should understand that ruffed grouse cover is temporary. Regenerating forests, say following an intensive timber harvest or removal of cattle from a pasture, only provide quality grouse cover for perhaps 20 years, after which the trees have grown to the point where they shade out smaller trees and shrubs. Past this point, there’s insufficient protective cover to allow grouse protection from predators.” Walter said that predators are certainly part of the equation, as they account for the vast majority of grouse mortality, but without dense areas of quality habitat the balance tips against grouse and numbers will decline.
“We build fences to keep predators away from our chicken coops, or brush piles to provide rabbits safety and, similarly, we can build grouse cover to keep these birds safe from fox and other predators by implementing appropriate forest management techniques,” Walter said. “The fundamental issue is not predation, but a lack of young forest cover that protects grouse from predators throughout the year. This is true for ruffed grouse, but also other species that require dense young forests.”
Walter said that it may be difficult to get back to grouse numbers seen in the 70s and 80s, when essentially the entire landscape was recovering from a century of intensive woodland pasturage. He noted, however, there are things that landowners can do.
“First, and most importantly, work with a forester or wildlife biologist to develop a forest management plan that includes management practices that make good sense from both a forest and a ruffed grouse perspective,” said Walter. “One of the big issues facing the health of our forests today is replacement of oak stands by other, more shade-adapted species such as sugar maple. Oaks need sunlight, so engaging in practices that will increase the amount of sunlight reaching the forest floor will allow young oak seedlings to establish the next generation oak stand. Controlling competing species in these stands will also be critical in allowing the oaks to establish.”
Walter said regenerating oak requires a lot of knowledge regarding forest ecology, and landowners need to have a professional provide guidance. Regenerating existing aspen stands by clear-cutting will also provide excellent cover for grouse, deer, young songbirds, and other wildlife.
Aspen regenerates readily from the root system into incredibly dense and vibrant young forests. Aspen, though, is very intolerant of shade so cannot regenerate under its own shade, so will be lost from the forest community without occasional clear-cutting.
There are also other things landowners may consider, said Walter, including shrub plantings, edge-feathering, or hinge-cutting. The first step, though, is to consult with a professional forester so that management actions can be prescribed that make sense given current forest conditions. It’s also important that landowners recognize the limits to which they alone can benefit ruffed grouse. Maintaining healthy grouse populations on the landscape requires a landscape approach, with habitat being created and maintained across property boundaries. Walter said working with neighbors to identify shared goals and opportunities related to forest management would be a benefit. He pointed out that there are many federal and state programs that can provide landowners both advice and financial assistance as they begin to actively manage for forest diversity and health.
Walter also noted that there are many conservation agencies and organizations interested in helping landowners achieve their forest management goals. The Wisconsin DNR’s Managed Forest Law provides landowners tax incentives for developing and implementing a proactive forest management plan on their land. Landowners can also search the internet for the “My Wisconsin Woods” website, which has been developed to directly provide landowners the tools and information they need to better understand and engage in woodland management.
The Ruffed Grouse Society is the nation’s foremost advocate for young forest communities, and Walter said area residents may be interested in joining to help support their mission of “Healthy Forests, Abundant Wildlife, and Sporting Traditions.” Information can be found by either going to www.ruffedgrousesociety.org or contacting Scott Walter, regional wildlife biologist for Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa.
The ruffed grouse population has declined approximately 90 percent over the past few decades, but Walter noted that management practices by landowners can certainly help.
“Oak regeneration practices, aspen harvests, timber stand improvement and shrub plantings all can provide dividends for the wildlife community and the landowner’s subsequent enjoyment of their property,” he said. “Grouse numbers have tracked the change in habitat closely. Many local residents remember fondly the heyday for grouse in the 70s and 80s, and are keenly interested in what’s happened. During those years, surveys indicate we had more grouse in the Driftless Region than we have in northern Wisconsin during peak years.”
Walter said that ruffed grouse have a cycle, with peaks occurring every 8-11 years, but populations along the southern edge of the species’ range exhibit much less marked cycles. The reasons behind the cycle are still being worked out by scientists, but weather and predation are both certainly involved to some extent.
Walter also pointed out some common misconceptions regarding the decline of grouse. One such notion is that the reintroduction of wild turkeys had a detrimental effect on the grouse population. This is not the case, however.
“This is a common misconception, based on the simple fact that turkeys were reintroduced, and their numbers increased, at the same time grouse were declining,” Walter said. “But while there is this correlation, there’s absolutely no link between the two. Ruffed grouse and wild turkeys utilize largely different habitats and food resources, and can coexist in a diverse forest landscape quite well. Turkeys are generalists, adapted to the wide range of habitats provided by the intermixture of forest and agricultural lands in our area. Grouse, on the other hand, are very much habitat specialists dependent upon large areas of dense young forest habitat, and their population decline locally is due to maturation of our forests. Some folks believe that simply the presence of trees should provide habitat for all forest wildlife, but many species, such as grouse, require particular types or age classes of forest. Without a diverse forest community, then, we expect to lose species adapted to particular “niches” within that forest, and this has been the case with grouse in our area. To put this into context, if you can easily walk through a woods, without bending under and squeezing through dense woody stems, or getting scratched up by prickly ash and other shrubs, the woods is too old to provide grouse cover and few if any grouse will be present.”
Crawford and surrounding counties have had feral hogs in for the past number of years, but Walter said feral hogs haven’t had much of an impact upon the grouse population.
“Feral hogs can certainly have an impact on ground-nesting birds and other wildlife,” said Walter. “However, although we have had hogs established in Crawford County, excellent response to the problem by the Wisconsin DNR and federal animal control experts have kept this nuisance from spreading. With the currently low number of feral hogs on our landscape, they do not pose broad problems for ruffed grouse. Let’s hope it stays that way! I encourage anyone who knows of the location of feral hogs to work with their local biologist to identify and pursue removal methods.”
For more information, interested persons can contact Scott Walter at ScottW@ruffedgrousesociety.org or at his office at (608) 538-3840 or by cell phone at (412) 720-6038.
