NY Out to Save Its Sprucies
Nah, we don't want it either.... (gamebirdhunts.com photo)
Ah, the spruce grouse, our version of the dodo bird. Dumb as a fencepost, stoned on whatever’s in spruce needles, and tastes like a combination of a sweat sock and a bluefish (we know some of you will disagree!). Can’t hunt ’em in some places, we have no problem with that.
First one we ever saw we could’ve killed with a stick, if not with our hands.
Anyhow, New York biologists are on a mission to save what sprucies remain in their state. Here are some excerpts from an AP article, a few comments in brackets:
> New York’s population of the spruce grouse…is nearing extinction.
> While boreal species – including [sprucies and] the boreal chickadee, Bicknell’s thrush, blackpoll warbler and gray jay – are plentiful further north in Canada, biologists say global climate change and habitat loss [yep!] are driving them out of the southern reaches of their range.
> The spruce grouse is the most threatened of all because it lives in isolated and shrinking patches of bog and doesn’t fly off in search of new territory like songbirds do. Biologists estimate there are 100 to 200 left in the Adirondacks. The spruce grouse population in New York is confined to 15 sites, down from 23 sites in 1987.
> The state Department of Environmental Conservation has drafted a Spruce Grouse Recovery Plan which will explore ways to save the species. Among the possibilities is capturing spruce grouse in Ontario, where they’re plentiful, and releasing them in the Adirondacks to refresh a gene pool depleted by decades of inbreeding.
> In 2008, Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife agency started augmenting that state’s spruce grouse population, estimated at about 100, by trapping and relocating 134 birds from Maine and Quebec to the Victory Basin Wildlife Management Area in northeastern Vermont, according to John Buck, an agency biologist. It’ll take 10 to 15 years for the success of that project to be realized, he said. [We’re assuming there’ll be no success without habitat work.]
> Angelena Ross, a DEC biologist who has studied spruce grouse for many years, said: “Our studies suggest that the spruce grouse may be declining now because of changes in forest structure and composition related to the maturation of coniferous forests,” Ross said. [Yep, forest maturation/not cutting is responsible for a bunch of bad effects.]
> The ruffed grouse, while not endangered, is also declining in the maturing hardwood forests of the Northeast because they need the cover provided by young trees, Ross said. [Dang straight!]
> DEC’s restoration plan may include habitat restoration by removing old trees to let young ones spring up. That would likely help boreal songbirds as well as spruce grouse, Ross said [ya think?!]. But that could only be done on private forest tracts because tree-cutting is prohibited on state land in the Adirondacks [WTH?!].
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We need some bumper stickers, like “Cut Trees, Save Wildlife.” Or something stronger. Any ideas?
Category: Forest Management, NY, Spruce grouse, VT
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Save the Rainforest, Harvest American Timber.
I am a Pro Hunting, Pro Logging Environmentalist.
GASP! Removal of trees?!?! I love that term. We should also be thinking about the growing amount of tinder that is piling up on our forest floors. It’s unfortunately just a matter of time before the next installment of “The Year Maine Burned”. Mother Nature can take care of herself, but the devastation of over 200,000 acres burning in 1947 along with hundreds of homes and many lives should not be forgotten. Proper forest management is good for everyone, including the ruffies!