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Healthy Forests, Abundant Wildlife, Conservation Ethic

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Conservation Policy

VOICE: RGS & AWS Support Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Council

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by Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation In March, RGS & AWS, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) and more than 30 of the nation’s leading hunting-conservation organizations sent a letter to the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture expressing strong support for the Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Council (HWCC). The HWCC is a Federal Advisory Council that is dedicated to supporting and advancing our nation’s time-honored traditions of hunting and recreational shooting. Why it matters: Federal Advisory Councils serve as unique consortiums to provide direct recommendations and advice to various federal agencies, often at the Secretarial level. The Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Council will report directly to the Secretaries of the...

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Please Speak Up for Green Mountain National Forest’s Early Successional Habitat Creation Project – Attend the June 8th Virtual Public Meeting

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We’re excited to announce that the Green Mountain National Forest’s Early Successional Habitat Creation Project (ESHCP) is ready to move ahead in 2022, and RGS & AWS is asking for your support. Spanning nearly 14,270 acres, the 15 year ESHC project will greatly enhance grouse and woodcock habitat, improve overall forest health & resilience, and work toward balanced forest conditions that can help bring grouse, woodcock and dozens of other bird and wildlife species back from the brink. After completing its Supplemental Information Review (SIR) of the project this winter, the USFS Green Mountain National Forest is ready to proceed with three...

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Potential Forest Management Impacts from the Changing Climate on Climate Change

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by Brent A. Rudolph, Ph.D. | RGS & AWS Chief Conservation & Legislative Officer Beliefs and attitudes on climate change vary considerably among Americans. However, regardless of personal opinions, the future of forest management will be substantially impacted by climate policies. An opportunity exists to leverage those policies to benefit forest health and wildlife. The Ruffed Grouse Society & American Woodcock Society is actively working in the policy arena to harness these initiatives to help our conservation mission. Without our involvement, the outcomes could be quite different and not conducive to the active forest management that we know benefits wildlife so...

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President’s Message – Covers Magazine, Spring 2022

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View of prescribed burn on George Washington-Jefferson National Forest. The fire resulted in 7% of the area becoming early successional habitat and 2% becoming open forest after one burn. U.S. Forest Service, Research Paper NRS-31. Photo by Sam Lindblom, The Nature Conservancy The term “disturbance dependent” is well understood in our circles. We recognize that habitat diversity is essential, and in a healthy forest, disturbance delivers that diversity. Of course, that’s why we advocate for active forest management. But have you ever thought about the natural processes we’re trying to emulate with forest management? Ruffed grouse have been around for some 25,000 years; what forces maintained...

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New Forest-Product Industry Partnerships Help Us Scale Up Our Habitat Improvement

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Post originally printed in Covers magazine – Winter 2021 The refuge manager paid hundreds of dollars per acre for a crew to thin 6-8” pine trees by hand. And then the thinned pine, scattered as it was on the ground, made it harder to get prescribed fire back into the stand. But the procurement forester from a nearby pellet mill determined there was enough volume of pine pulpwood for a logger to do the thinning commercially. A commercial harvest meant the logger could make money from the delivered wood chips, the thinned pine was turned into a useful product, and the refuge...

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