AVERAGE GROUSE HUNTING EXPECTED OVERALL
HARRISBURG – With favorable late spring/early summer weather conditions across much of the state, Pennsylvania Game Commission biologists expect ruffed grouse hunting to be average to slightly above average – where good habitat exists – for the more than 100,000 hunters who annually pursue these challenging game birds.
The opening day of the state’s three-part grouse season is Saturday, Oct. 16, and runs through Nov. 27. The season reopens Dec. 13 to 23, and then again from Dec. 27 to Jan. 22. Participating hunters must have a valid Pennsylvania hunting license and follow the regulations that govern this rugged sport of brush-busting and mountain-scampering.
\”Landscape-level trends in early successional habitat over the last several decades have been bad news for grouse, woodcock, and other young forest species throughout most of the northeastern United States, and Pennsylvania has been no exception,\” said Ian Gregg, Game Commission Game Bird Section supervisor. \”Christmas Bird Count and 2nd Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas data suggest that overall grouse populations have declined 30 to 50 percent since the early 1980s, which is no surprise given that over that same period, even though our total forested acreage was pretty stable, the percentage in seedling/sapling cover declined from about 20 percent to 12 percent. Simply put, our forests are getting older, and that’s a negative for grouse.
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