by Kris Millgate
It’s the crunch of color-faded leaves flattening underfoot and the snag of elbow-patched sleeves passing branches. It’s also the feel of frost on face, gun in gloves and butterflies in belly. Add to those marvelous sensations, dogs on point and birds on wing. The scenario is outdoor perfection and it’s thrilling so the last thing you’re thinking about is the why behind what you’re experiencing. That’s understandable in the heat of the hunt, but afterward, after feathers weave through fingers, consider this: There’s actually years of strategy behind that fleeting moment.
“We’re focused on forest health and it just so happens that ruffed grouse and American woodcock are our bellweathers. They’re our champion species. They’re a huge part of the life and life cycle of the forest,” said Jon Steigerwaldt, RGS & AWS eastern and western Great Lakes forest conservation director. “We know our best bet for long-term healthy populations is managing healthy forests.”
Intensive forest restoration projects are flourishing in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The efforts are resulting in more precise population surveys, which lead to more opportunities in the field for hunters during the season of shotgun shells in your pocket. Here’s how uplanders benefit from ongoing work in these three Midwestern states.
Michigan
More than half of Michigan is forested. If the trees aren’t held in public trust by the U.S. Forest Service or the state, they’re under private or corporate management. The estimated 20 million acres of trees include aspen, a ruffed grouse staple in all seasons and in all stages of life.
Conservation work across 42,000 acres has benefitted aspen among areas with timber of no commercial value, but high wildlife potential. That’s the sweet spot for RGS & AWS working in tandem with the U.S. Forest Service through the Zone Aspen Project. The project focuses on creating “rabbitat” – that is, habitat that benefits rabbits, but it helps birds, too.
“You drop a tree in a specific way to create cover for rabbits, but that also becomes cover for ruffed grouse and American woodcock,” Steigerwaldt said. “It’s also browse for deer.”
Michigan also leverages a federal program called the Good Neighbor Authority for the benefit of grouse, aspen and other timber-related inventory. The state supplies staffers who help process timber sales on federal land with the proceeds going back into forest management.
“It’s dramatically increased management for grouse habitat,” said Adam Bump, Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) wildlife division upland game bird specialist. “Most of the funds are going to be for aspen clear cuts, but we also do a fair amount of brush management on state lands by mowing alder and making strip cuts for woodcock habitat.”
The result of the work is an upward trend in upland birds. MDNR conducts ruffed grouse drummer surveys (males drumming their wings on logs during mating season) in April and May. The counts are increasing. In 2022, there were .85 drums heard per stop. In 2024, that nearly doubled to 1.41 per stop.
“In those local areas where all that extra work is getting done, hunters are starting to reap the benefits now I’m sure,” said Bump. “Those clearings are just getting to the right age for ruffed grouse and woodcock so people finding those spots are pretty happy.”
Hunters finding Grouse Enhanced Management Sites are happy, too. The 10-year-old program offers 19 sites in Michigan. They’re managed specifically for new hunters or seasoned hunters who need a mellow day in the field.
“There are signs and most of them have mowed trails and planted cover,” Bump said. “They allow you to try out grouse hunting without having to go through the thickest cover. Hunters know they’re managed for grouse and they’ve been pretty popular.”
Minnesota
A joint management approach is proof positive in Minnesota, too. The Moose Habitat Collaborative improves landscapes for moose with a trickle-down effect for upland.
“If we’re managing for moose, there’s going to be benefits for ruffed grouse and American woodcock. We’re diversifying forest age class and forest structure across large landscapes. This isn’t 10 acres, it’s thousands of acres,” said Steigerwaldt. “The overall goal is a more diverse forest overtime and that’s not just beneficial for moose. That’s beneficial for ruffed grouse. Fifteen-year-old moose habitat is some of the best diverse mix of species for ruffed grouse.”
State surveys document the gains from such collaborative work. Minnesota conducts drum counts in spring and brood counts (how many chicks with adults) in summer. The first drum count goes back to 1949, but the brood counts are new. They started in 2019 because what was counted in spring wasn’t matching what hunters saw in the fall anymore. Something was off.
“Drumming data used to be a really good indicator of what grouse hunters could expect in the fall,” said Charlotte Roy, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources grouse project leader and research scientist. “That stopped being the case in the early 2000s. I’m not sure why. Could be climate change, landscape change, West Nile virus. I felt it was necessary for us to get a sense of what’s going on between April and September. A lot can happen during that time. Something’s going on that we don’t understand, but we can still get a better idea of what hunters can expect.”
A solid example of what happens when you only rely on drumming surveys for setting season expectations developed in 2024. Spring emerged on the heels of a mild winter. There were strong drum indicators across 127 designated drumming routes, some of those routes are recorded by RGS & AWS member volunteers. If research had stopped after spring counts, the assumption would have been great hunter harvest in the fall, but research didn’t stop there.
Another survey was done in the summer. That one, the brood count, focuses on the survival of hatchlings. It showed a decline in the population within just a couple of months between the two surveys. Even more important, the cause of the decline wasn’t a mysterious hypothetical. The problem was obvious and unavoidable. It was weather induced.
“We had one of the wettest Junes on record and wet weather is terrible for chick survival,” Roy said. “June is when they’re hatching. That’s when the most mortality occurs. It was really wet and a lot of the broods ended up dying. Our survey numbers showed a big drop in July. If they got through that big rainfall they did okay, but anywhere with heavy rainfall saw low brood numbers. We were able to inform hunters of what to expect based on additional data. If you’re expectations are aligned with what’s going on, it’s a lot easier to go with it. If expectations are high and you’re not finding birds, that’s frustrating. Additional data to help inform people gives everyone more realistic expectations.”
Wisconsin
The Badger State conducts two surveys like Minnesota does, drums in May and broods in August. Compared to historic numbers, the grouse population in Wisconsin is on the decline. The downward trend started in the 1980s.
“Statewide, we had tons of grouse, especially in the Driftless Area, but we’ve lost tons of habitat in that area,” said Alaina Roth, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources ruffed grouse specialist and Vilas County wildlife biologist. “There’s a huge loss of young forest in the south. Active timber harvest and public land in the northern third is now the stronghold for grouse. In the Driftless southwest, there’s rarely a bird.”
Like Minnesota, wet weather dented chick survival in 2024, but hunters still declared decent success. Roth attributes much of that steady hold, plus years of a documented grouse population that cycles regularly within 10-year intervals, to consistent timber harvest.
“There’s a lot of inputs that can change the population of a species. For ruffed grouse, the most important change we can make is habitat management with 99% of that as timber harvest,” Roth said. “There’s this outdated thinking that timber harvest isn’t good for wildlife, but when done sustainably and effectively it benefits wildlife and the logger and the paper industry. In Wisconsin, sustainable timber harvest is incredibly important for wildlife.”
Private property also plays a role in Wisconsin’s hunter success. RGS & AWS coordinates personalized management plans with landowners. The organization’s Wisconsin Private Lands Program completed forest management plans on 83 acres in 2016. That statistic soared to 15,517 acres in 2023 by tapping into other state and federal programs. Management plans include practices such as tree planting, tree harvesting, early successional habitat, pollinator projects and prescribed burns.
“When we talk about the conservation work we’re choosing to do in Wisconsin, we have a very private lands focus. The forest demographics are less diverse and aging rapidly on private lands in Wisconsin and the bulk of the forest is privately owned in Wisconsin compared to Minnesota,” Steigerwaldt said. “A lot of landowners want to do something. They just don’t know how or where to start. Research shows that a landowner is far more likely to follow through with forest management if they have a forest management plan. So a key measure of success for our Private Lands Program is getting private landowners a management plan.”
The other measure of success is harvest data. Ruffed grouse are included in each state’s small game harvest report with additional confirmation of progress deemed evident by visual cues across the landscape. Cues like canopy cover and variety within that cover. Turns out, ruffed grouse don’t stray far once they find a cluster of trees that suits them. The more clusters on the ground, the better for birds trying to bounce back after declines.
“Once they find their ideal habitat, they spend the rest of their life in an area of 10 to 40 acres,” said Steigerwaldt. “What that means for managers is the ruffed grouse’s home range is incredibly small and we have to provide all of this diversity in a relatively small area. We can’t get hung up on annual changes in hunter success from one year to another. We’re focusing on acres of habitat improved because we know that’s going to help the population on the back end.”
Outdoor journalist Kris Millgate is based in Idaho where she runs trail, chases trout and hunts birds. She followed salmon migration solo during the pandemic for the wildlife film Ocean to Idaho. Her Emmy-winning film, On Grizzly Ground, is available now along with her third book, “My Place Among Beasts.” See her work at TightLineMedia.com.
