AS A F4RMER 383 



Gersteir^ concluded : "As a predator control measure, the payment of bounties has proven 

 generally inefficient as it has placed under control only one relatively small species popula- 

 tion, while its effect on five others has been negligible". We thus conclude that even with 

 the stimulation of adequate bounties, control of the important ruffed grouse predators is not 

 accomplished in the sense of marked reduction in populations. 



Even if populations of fur-bearing predators are not reduced by commercial trapping or 

 trapping for bounty, will not the numbers that actually are taken benefit the ruffed grouse 

 population? In some cases they may. The taking of fox and weasel for fur may lower 

 grouse nest mortality in localities where those predators are severely reduced and thereby 

 increase the fall surplus*. This sort of trapping, however, is not commonly associated with 

 the better grouse coverts of the state. Furthermore, it is a dubious benefit unless the added 

 surplus is taken by hunting. 



Gerstell, speaking of Pennsylvania's experience with the bounty, concludes, "It has been 

 impossible to prove that the operation of the bounty system over a relatively long period 

 of years has improved game conditions. Furthermore, it was shown that the annual amount 

 of money expended for bounty payments was controlled not by the abundance of predators, 

 but principally by climatic and general economic conditions". The trapping of predatory 

 species for fur, with or without the added economic stimulus of a bounty, is negligible in 

 its effect on grouse abundance. 



AS A FARMER 



As one delves deeper into the complexities of the grouse problem, he becomes ever more 

 impressed with the role that man plays in affecting the birds' habitat, .\ever is this more 

 significant than in his work as a farmer. In the first place, at least in the Northeast, the 

 most productive coverts occur in those portions of the range where the woodlands are 

 broken up by considerable areas of land in farms. The farmer is responsible for this condi- 

 tion. Secondly, since these lands are privately owned, whatever is done that affects grouse 

 either for good or bad will be done by the farmer. 



He clears the land of woods, or keeps it clear. He controls livestock that may impair 

 or destroy cover values. When he turns lumberman and takes products from the farm wood- 

 land, he is again functioning as a manager of the cover that may or mav not support grouse, 

 depending upon how he does his work. 



Clearing of Land 



One of the most generally accepted legends of primeval conditions in the northeastern states 

 is the great abundance of game in the unbroken wilderness. Originating in the tales of the 

 early settlers who found adequate supplies of game around their newly-made clearings, it 

 was naturally assumed that this abundance was an attribute of the whole wilderness. Little 

 did these pioneers realize that their very efforts in creating the clearings was largely respon- 

 sible for the local abundance of grouse, deer, and turkeys which furnished them with a ready 

 supply of fresh meat. 



Thus the clearing of the timber to make way for farming was the first game management 

 technique practiced, however unwittingly, by the white man in America. But, as with all 

 good things, too much is no good. The clearing of the land in many regions soon passed 

 the optimum condition for grouse and, in pla'-e of the improvement of the coverts, the needs 

 of farming caused a rapid destruction of the coverts which delimited the available 



* See Chapter VH, p. 346. 



