
939 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[DeEc. 14, 1907. | 

The Ruffed Grouse Scarcity. 
Groton, Mass., Nov. 25—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Your editorial in the last issue on 
scarcity of ruffed grouse in the Eastern States, 
and your request for more information from your 
readers on this subject, leads me to write a 
short summary of conditions in this section of 
Massachusetts. 
There can be no question of the scarcity of 
the birds; that is the testimony of everyone who 
has opportunities for observation. All agree that 
the decrease this year has been very marked, 
yet the alarming part of the situation is that 
the diminution this year is only a sudden slump 
in a general tendency which has been going on 
with ups and downs for an indefinite time. Last 
season was generally considered a very fair one 
for ruffed grouse in Massachusetts, and there 
may have been a slight increase in the birds over 
the year or two immediately preceding, yet to 
old hunters the birds seemed to be in small 
numbers as compared with ten or fifteen years 
ago. 
To be more specific I will take the case of 
a man with whom I occasionally take a day 
afield, and in whose word I have entire confi- 
dence. He has hunted in this locality for the 
past fourteen years. In two recent tramps he 
and I each time covered between fourteen and 
eighteen miles of woodland with which he is 
thoroughly familiar, and flushed only about five 
ruffed grouse each time. Last year in similar 
tramps over the same country, and at the same 
season, we usually found from eight to twelve 
birds. Four years ago we could nearly always 
find fifteen. That is as far as my own ex- 
perience goes in these parts. My friend, how- 
ever, assures me that twelve to fourteen years 
ago, in the same localities, he could flush from 
thirty to fifty birds almost any day during the 
open season. Other gunners, with whom I have 
talked, agree that this represents about the pro- 
portion of decrease according to their observa- 
tion, and most of them declare that they have 
never seen the birds scarcer than at present. 
There is no general agreement upon the prob- 
able cause for this year’s very marked decrease. 
The severe cold of last winter, the drouth of 
midsummer, and the cold nesting season all may 
have been contributory, but as Forest AND 
STREAM points out, these conditions were not 
universal, while scarcity is. In this section 
goshawks probably did much damage during the 
winter, but I am not informed whether they ap- 
peared all over the grouse country. At all 
events, whatever the reasons for this year’s de- 
crease, it would seem that, for the persistent 
tendency of the grouse (in this section, at least) 
to lose ground during the last fifteen years, man 
must be chiefly responsible. When in the past 
catastrophes such as the present one occurred, 
and the number of the birds were greatly dimin- 
ished through natural causes, man never stayed 
his hand to give the birds a chance to recover; 
so this year, despite the fact that probably there 
were no more birds in our covers at the open- 
ing of the shooting season this fall than were 
left in them last year at its close, the birds are 
hunted as persistently as ever, and the inevitable 
result must be a sadly depleted stock for breed- 
ing next spring, even if the spring should be a 
favorable one, and a number of young 
birds raised. The actual increase would neces- 
sarily be small, and most, if not all, of the in- 
crease would probably be killed off before the 
arrival of the next nesting Another bad 
season would then reduce the number of birds 
lower than ever. 
For these reasons it is to be feared that half 
way measures can avail nothing to check the 
gradual, if erratic, decrease of the ruffed grouse. 
I have talked to a number of sportsmen in this 
section, and practically all favor a close season 
for at least two years. I understand that many 
sportsmen from other parts of the State are also 
in favor of this plan, though some either do not 
care to commit themselves at this time, or else 
think that one year would be long enough. I 
note that Mr. H. H. Kimball, in your last issue, 
writing under date of Nov. 16, instances the case 
of a prominent sportsman of twenty years’ ex- 
perience, who believes that a close season of one 

g¢ od 

season. 
or more years is an absolute. necessity. The 
objection of the gentleman from the western 
part of the State, which Mr. Kimball also men- 
tions in his letter, that a close season for game 
would “only cause a complete annihilation of 
the birds the year following” will not, I believe, 
appeal to persons who have much acquaintance 
with the ruffed grouse as he is in Massachusetts 
as a valid one. There can be no good reason 
for supposing that a few years’ protection would 
make the birds less wild and resourceful than 
at present. 
In their report for the year 1905, the commis- 
sioners on fisheries and game in Massachusetts 
say: 
“The ruffed grouse or partridge is easily our 
chief game bird. The past year (1905) has been 
favorable for the young, and there has been 
probably no marked decrease in numbers in this 
State. Yet the conditions surrounding this bird 
are annually becoming more severe. The cutting 
of the pine forests restricts the refuge areas, and 
the increasing numbers of gunners, with im- 
proved guns and more carefully trained dogs, 
making havoc each year, tends to diminish the 
number of breeding birds. The direct effect of 
human influence upon this most hardy bird has 
been a most alarming decrease of 50 to 75 per 
cent. in the past fifty years.” It should be noted 
that this warning was written at the close of a 
year which had been especially favorable to the 
birds, since then their numbers have been very 
noticeably diminished. 
Elsewhere in the same 
sioners say: 
“We have abundant covers, capable of sup- 
porting at least 50 to 100 ruffed grouse per square 
mile (if properly protected from illegal shoot- 
ing, and from the natural enemies of the nests 
report the commis- 
and young) instead of the paltry five or ten 
ruffed grouse per square mile as at present. 
Properly handled, the annual crop of ruffed 
erouse in this State should in an average season 
be not less than 25,000. 
With a realization of these possibilities and 
a knowledge of present conditions, how can any- 
one who really desires the perpetuation of this 
splendid bird still favor the temporizing policy 
which has allowed it to be reduced to its present 
condition? We cannot afford to play with the 
remnant which remains; we must take radical 
action not only to preserve that remnant intact, 
but also to bring about a decided increase in its 
numbers. When this has been effected, restric- 
tive measures such as licenses, bag limits, shorter 
seasons, etc., will no doubt be most excellent and 
necessary measures for keeping the stock of 
birds at a proper level from year to year. If 
all true sportsmen and lovers of wild nature in 
this State will unite in an earnest effort there 
seems no good reason why a close season for 
at least two years cannot be secured. Such a 
close time must come sooner or later if the 
ruffed grouse is to be saved from eventual ex- 
tinction, and the longer action is deferred the 
longer necessarily will be the time required for 
the birds to recover. WILLIAM P. WHARTON. 
Troy, N. Y., Nov. 25.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have noted in my weekly reading of 
your paper that many inquiries as to what had 
become of the partridges are registered. 
A friend and I went one afternoon to hunt 
a ridge that lies back of the river about twenty 
miles below Albany. We have hunted here for 
years; in fact, my friend hunted there thirty- 
five years ago when a boy, and have never failed 
to find several birds in the three miles we hunted. 
This year after a faithful hunt we gave up 
without having seen or heard a bird. 
On the way home we met a fellow sportsman 
who had hunted three days in Greene county, 
where there generally are plenty of birds, and 
had given up in disgust. He said that the birds 
had died off in the late summer from a sick- 
ness similar to blackhead in turkeys, the natives 
having found the bodies in the woods. 
TROJAN. 

Ermira, N. Y., Nov. 23.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have read with much interest your 
editorial in the issue of the 23d as well as the 
numerous letters which have told of the scarcity 

| 
of the ruffed grouse throughout the Easter} 
States. 
It is of course an important thing to th} 
sportsmen to ascertain, if possible, the caus}: 
of this scarcity. This condition has been varij 
ously attributed to the severe winter weathe), 
freezing and starving the old birds, to the col 
wet spring which prevented the hatching of th 
eggs and killing the young birds after hatching 
to a disease epidemic killing the birds, to tick 
or some other parasite, and to foxes being s| 
numerous as to kill them off, and while it i 
true that any one or all of these causes is prol 
ably responsible for the present scarcity 
grouse, and that it is also very important thé 
we get at the proper.cause, the strange thing t 
me is that the only course open to sportsmen t 
improve this condition had been dodged an 
evaded. 
I hope it cannot be said through any selfis 
motive that this remedy has been overlookec 
because we have always been led to believe tha 
the sportsmen as a class are very free from thi] 
disease, but the continued hunting of grous| 
under the present condition is nothing less tha| 
extermination. 
By united effort on the part of the sportsme1 
both individuallly and through the influence c 
their organizations, the season on grouse coul 
be closed, and it would be well to close the sea 
son on woodcock. This protection offered t 
the woodcock would do no harm, and it woul| 
be almost impossible to enforce the closed seaso 
on ruffed grouse if it were open season on wood 
cock, and the same might be said of quail. 
On a trip through the woods in our count 
one week ago seven grouse were found in a 
all day’s hunt. Four of the seven. were see 
and three of these were killed. With birds s 
very scarce each individual bird is hunted unt 
killed if possible. Over this same ground on 
year ago we flushed from forty to fifty grouse 
and at the end of the hunting season in 1906 : 
was possible to go over this same territory an| 
find that number of birds which would winte| 
through. } 
It will not do us any good to call on scientist 
to offer a solution to this trouble, unless we 
the shooters, are ready to do our share towar 
stopping the extermination and lay aside ou 
guns for a season or two. ELMIRA. 


HENDERSONVILLE, N. C., Nov. 23.—Edito 
Forest and Stream: I have been shootin 
grouse in the western North Carolina moun} 
tains for at least thirty-five years, and durin} 
that time I have been a close observer of th 
animal and bird life of the woods. The ruffe| 
grouse has.many enemies among the wildcats| 
raccoons, opossums and foxes; then hawks cate 
many, but I am convinced that here in our moun 
tains the razorback hog destroys far more tha 
all the others combined. Unless a ruffed grous| 
builds its nest well off the ground this miser 
able little apology for a hog will eat every eg! 
and break up the nest. Young birds are no| 
distasteful to this hog and anything is not to 
good or bad for it to eat on the earth or unde 
the earth or in the water under the earth. Wer} 
I the owner of a game preserve no razorbac! 
hog could inhabit it. 
I remember when the stock law was enacte|| 
in South Carolina several years ago, and th 
fight made against it in the interest of thi 
razorback hog et al, and how partridges (Bo) 
White) and other game rapidly increased whe 
he was fenced in. Yes, I feel sure that th| 
decrease in ruffed grouse and also the smal 
game can in large measure be credited to thi) 
razorback hog. No doubt many of your reader} 
will remember Bill Nye’s description of thi| 
rapid representative of the family Hog. He i 
thin with long bristles on his back, a big ani 
keen snout, active, and a drove or gang of ther 
would rather eat a dog than not. 
Ernest L. EwBANK,. 
SUSQUEHANNA County, Pa., Nov. 30—Edito 
Forest and Stream: The shooting season enc 
ing to-night has been somewhat varied. 
At the opening gray squirrels were more tha 
usually abundant, and good bags were easil 
made. My son, a lad of fifteen, was out an 

