Man's Relation to the Grouse 



The eflFect of man upon the grouse depends upon the kind of man. 

 The American aborigines hved their hves almost hterally with these 

 birds, in their own habitat. The numbers taken by them for food 

 probably was no more than the excess above the winter carrying 

 capacity, and a healthy thing for the bii'ds. The clearings and trails 

 made by the Amerindians were improvements to the grouse range. 

 And the bird was a fairly important item of food to these men. 



The early white settlers also depended upon the "partridge" for 

 a considerable amount of food. For a time the pioneer's land clear- 

 ing provided a beneficial interspersion of cover types over the grouse 

 range. But in most areas it outgrew this effect and more and more 

 excluded the grouse from the land, restricting it to the regions and 

 cover that could not be profitably and extensively cleared. Complete 

 extermination was the fate of this magnificent bird over much of its 

 original range. More than half of the northeastern states comes 

 within this category. Such is the march of civilization. 



Surely no further elaboration is needed to indicate the importance 

 of man in gi'ouse ecology. In fact it may be said that the bird's future 

 rests with him. Man's relations with grouse are many faceted, as 

 man in the mass is many-sided. As a hunter he kills gi"ouse; as a 

 trapper he kills the enemies of the grouse, or the food of the grouse's 

 enemies, thus possibly adding pressure on the grouse itself. As a 

 woodsman he sometimes improves and at other times destrovs the 

 bird's home with saw, ax, and fire. As a farmer he protects the woods 

 with fence or he grazes it with livestock, he clears the land and keeps 

 it cleared, he keeps livestock and pets which may kill the grouse, 

 trample its eggs, or transmit disease to it. As a conservationist he 

 enacts laws, manages the land, and does other things that sometimes 

 benefit and sometimes injure the grouse. In all these and other ways 

 man's impact is felt, however unwittingly, by Bonasa umbcllus. 



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