ONTARIO RUFFED GROUSE STUDIES I960 



During the summer of i960 District staffs again counted the number 

 of young in ruffed grouse broods. A total of 9^+1 were checked in fifteen 

 Districts. In 1959? 576 broods were counted; the increase in I96O is not due 

 to an imporvement in the ruffed grouse population but is because more 

 Districts participated in the survey. 



Table No. 1 summarizes the brood coiont by District. Average brood 

 sizes for 1959 and 1958i where available, are given for comparison. 59 broods 

 counted in September are not included because many broods begin to disperse at 

 this time and counts are not a reliable index to survival. 



It will be seen that on the whole the survival of young ruffed grouse 

 was not as good in I960 as it was in 1959* Only two Districts, Lindsay and 

 Sioux Lookout, showed an increase in brood size for each of the three summer 

 months . 



Brood counts are not practical in the Erie District and no data is 

 available on survival of young there. Breeding success of ruffed grouse there 

 must have been exceptional in I960; there were grouse in many woodlots which 

 normally do not hold them and reports were received of hunters who flushed 

 ^0 to 60 birds on a day's hunt. The number of grouse seen per 100 hours 

 in Erie District for a small sample of grouse hunters was the highest in the 

 Province in i960. 



liunter-^ again co-operated in supplying field staff with wings and 

 tails of grouse sliot for age and sex studies. A total of 5529 were received 

 comparoQ with '}299 collected in 1959- In most Districts the ratio of juvenals 

 to adult females in the bag was lower than that recorded in 1959 and reflected 

 poorer survival. In Tweed, Parry Sound, and White River, however, there was an 

 improvement in the ratio although in the latter two Districts it cannot be said 

 that the ratio was high. 



In i960 data on the quality of grouse hunting on foot in the bush 

 was kept separate from that collected from hunters who drive bush roads and 

 stop to shoot birds that are seen. 



The results which are not strictly comparable with previous years 

 are presented in Table No. 3 and No. ^. A total of 676 hunters who operated on 

 foot in the bush and 385 who hunted roads supplied information on their hunt. 



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