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Healthy Forests, Abundant Wildlife, Conservation Ethic

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Membership Special: Help us celebrate our 60th Anniversary!

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With support from Pyke Gear, we’re offering a special deal when you join or renew at the $60 Conservation Membership level or above.*

We are celebrating 60 years of conservation success (1961 – 2021) at Ruffed Grouse Society & American Woodcock Society!

Join or renew your Conservation, Advocate, Uplander, and Centurion Membership level and you’ll receive a Pyke Gear gift coupon, 60th Anniversary tee & neck gator, AND the annual subscription to Covers Magazine. A 60th Anniversary decal and the RGS & AWS patch are also included.

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RGS & AWS Northeast Forest Conservation Update: Part 2

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How the Northeast’s public and private landownership patterns influence RGS & AWS conservation approach.

By Todd Waldron, Northeast Forest Conservation Director

In the most recent RGS & AWS conservation update from the Northeast Region, we looked at the Northeast Upland Gamebird Technical Committee 2017 findings in terms of how diminishing forest habitat diversity is impacting grouse, woodcock and many other forest wildlife populations. One consideration for how RGS & AWS and our partners will need to approach this challenge is to consider land ownership patterns across the Northeast.

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RGS & AWS Northeast Forest Conservation Update: Part 1

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A primer for those curious about ecological issues impacting the Northeastern Region of the U.S.

By Todd Waldron, Northeast Forest Conservation Director

Photo by Todd Waldron

February 22, 2021 – If you and your dog have been covering countless miles through New England’s autumn woods and have only been flushing a fraction of the birds that you used to see – there is a reason for it.

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Action Alert: Join us TODAY in supporting a rule change by the USFWS

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Photo by Ben Amstutz

Please take a minute to support federal forest management by commenting on a proposed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule.

We support this rule, which will address a harmful court decision that has stalled many important forest and wildlife management projects. Numerous lawsuits have exploited the current lack of clarity, including one that we’re fighting on Indiana’s Hoosier National Forest where high quality habitat is needed to reverse severe declines in ruffed grouse populations.

Read more: http://bit.ly/fws-newrule

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Video Contest | 2020 Wisconsin Grouse Camp

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Win a spot at this year’s Grouse Camp in Wisconsin and waive the $150 registration fee.

Tell Us Why You Want to Attend Grouse Camp?

We would love for you to Join Us at Grouse Camp in Eagle River, WI on September 25th -27th. Now you have a chance to do so for free by entering our active video contest.

Thanks to generous donors, winners (up to 10) will receive free entry to Grouse Camp 2020 which includes event registration and some meals ($150 value). This does not include lodging.

Here’s How to Enter:

  • All you have to do is record a short video of yourself (30-60 seconds) telling us why you would like to attend grouse camp this year. If you have a friend you would like to attend with, tell us that too!
  • You can submit the video in one of two ways. Either by posting it on social media and tagging @ruffedgrousesociety and using the hashtag #grousecamp or by sending it to RGS & AWS directly via email (kellen@ruffedgrousesociety.org) or social media direct message. Make sure to like and follow Ruffed Grouse Society on Facebook and Instagram.
  • For more information about the event: Join Us at Grouse Camp or Event Flyer
  • Entries will be accepted through September 10th. RGS & AWS will notify the winners soon after.
Join Us at Grouse Camp 2020

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE: What are “Healthy Forests”?

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Pres Msg

            “I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen, but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land.”

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GROUSE CAMP TOUR STARTS TODAY!

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NEW YORK & NEW ENGLAND

2017 GROUSE CAMP TOUR

October 21 – 29

#grousecamptour

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“There is an old New England saying to the effect that if you give a man a shotgun, a bird dog and a violin, he won’t amount to a damn.”

 ~William Harnden Foster ~

Join the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society for the third Grouse Camp Tour, where we celebrate habitat, membership, volunteers and the grouse/woodcock hunting experience. This year’s Tour will be throughout the New York and New England region: New York Grouse & Woodcock Benefit Hunt – Malone, NY, Vermont, Western Massachusetts and Southern Maine.

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THE LITTLE THINGS – EDITOR NOTE

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The thought of losing the little things we love about grouse and woodcock hunting reveals truly what’s at stake for the future of our sporting traditions if we don’t strive to create healthy forests now.

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On a Friday evening this past February, I rounded into the entryway of my home and spied my blaze hunting vest hanging on the wall in the same place I had  it after every hunt since September. I stood there for a moment while numerous memories from October and November flooded through my mind and honestly felt sad knowing the season was over. That unfortunate and inevitable time had come to put it away until next year.

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SUCCESS: Inaugural Maryland Dog of the Year & Chukar Challenge

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By Dave Hansroth, RGS & AWS Regional Director

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End of a successful run at the Inaugural Maryland Dog of the Year & Chukar Challenge

For several years, Maryland RGS chapters floated the idea of a Maryland Dog of the Year Challenge.  Both active chapters in Maryland (Potomac Valley and Backbone Mountain) previously held individual chukar challenges, and logistics were complicated to make the new idea happen.  However, it really started to take shape when Brad and Mark Minnick offered their Twin Ridge Game Farm for an entire weekend for just the cost of the birds.  They also agreed to help market the event and to provide some of the help needed to run an event of this magnitude.  It was hard to turn down a deal like that!

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New Hunters Gain Momentum in Pennsylvania

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By Richard Elliott II
Treasurer/Retention & Recruitment Coordinator Allegheny RGS Chapter
Assistant Huntsman Coordinater UBH RGS Chapter
Brockport, Pennsylvania

I’m very grateful for and to the RGS and AWS staff and to the many other people making this program a possibility. I believe this is a program every chapter can use to benefit the next generation of upland hunters.

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