Game Cycle 147 



For instance, Hjalmar Blomberg, an old hunter of Prentice, Wisconsin, says 

 that while he cannot date them, partridge cycles "go way back;" that when birds 

 were scarce it was assumed they had "left the country" In the absence of quick 

 communication and current periodical literature the individual observer had no way 

 of knowing whether the birds were scarce elsewhere. For scarcity or abundance 

 to be correctly interpreted, it must first be known whether it is local or general, 

 and this the pioneers had no way of knowing. 



To this day there are still hundreds of observers who ascribe the 1927 cycle 

 to hunting, weather, predators, or other local causes. They are not aware of its 

 continental proportions, or of its seeming disregard of variable local conditions, 

 hence they are strictly within the rules of logic to accept the simpler and localized 

 theory of causation. Once the geographic sweep of this great phenomenon is ap- 

 preciated, however, the acceptance of locally variable factors as primary causes be- 

 comes intellectually impossible. In Wisconsin alone the factor of hunting, in the 

 case of ruffed grouse, varies from very severe to none at all, yet during the 1927 

 depression the grouse were uniformly absent. Predators must vary widely, yet the 

 grouse were as scarce where there are few as where there are many. Weather, in- 

 deed, is a factor often uniform over large areas, and some connection with weather 

 has already been admitted as probable, but the shortages are too long to be readily 

 ascribed to a single bad season, and too radical in degree to be accounted for by 

 the failure of new broods. Moreover, it should be remembered that the cyclic 

 shortages are the most radical in the most weather-proof of game species, namely, 

 the bud-eating and snow-roosting ruffed grouse and prairie chicken. If weather, 

 acting in the ordinary accepted sense, were the primary cause, why should not quail 

 fluctuate more severely than ruffed grouse? 



Cycles and Game Administration. To the extent that Section G of 

 Chart 8 and the hatched zone in Chart 9 correctly interpret the future behavior 

 of cycles, it indicates that an abundance of grouse may be expected to prevail only 

 during about 3 years out of every 9, and these 3 years will be consecutive, with 6 

 lean years intervening. In short, Statewide open seasons will be justified only 

 about one-third of the time. 



Local abundance, possibly only of one species, may be expected for a year or 

 two at each end of the lean period. Adjustment of the State's management policy 

 to this extremely variable situation obviously demands not only the delegation of 

 full regulatory powers to a competent conservation commission, but also the 

 prosecution of a skillful and continuous game survey to keep track of local situa- 

 tions. 



Legislative enactments fixing open seasons and closed areas on cyclic species 

 are often out of date within a year. Thus there are certain counties in Wisconsin 

 closed by statute for prairie chickens and ruffed grouse. These closures bear no 

 relation to their present geographic variations in abundance. Doubtless the statute 

 reflects some temporary aspect of the cycle in years past. Minnesota, with her 

 alternate open years, once had a closed year fall on a cycle peak, and an open year 



