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Forage
Forage Extension Program
Ruffed Grouse
Habitat Management Suggestions
for Selected Wildlife Species
By R.J. Mackie, R.F. Batchelor, M.E. Majerus, J.P. Weigand,
and V.P. Sundberg
"Overall,
logging may be considered beneficial to ruffed
grouse since it results in the establishment of
a mosaic of subclimax vegetation formerly provided
only by fire." |
Ruffed grouse inhabit dense cover of mixed conifer
and deciduous trees and shrubs and are often found along
stream bottoms. They remain within a smaller homer range
and a habitat of more dense cover than the far-ranging
blue or spruce grouse. Adult ruffed grouse may spend
most of their lives in less than two square miles of
habitat.
Food
Ruffed grouse feed extensively on a wide variety of
seeds, nuts, fruits, buds, leaves, flowers, and insects.
During winter and early spring there seldom is a scarcity
of food for ruffed grouse since they subsist on buds
of deciduous trees and shrubs, including aspen, willow,
and dogwood. In spring, aspen catkins are often the
mainstay of incubating hens. Animal foods comprise less
than 5 percent of the summer diet of adult birds. The
food of chicks is 70 percent or more insects--chiefly
ants, spiders, beetles, caterpillars, and grasshoppers--through
the first few weeks following hatching. As the season
progresses, it changes to plant foods as they become
available. The following are preferred foods utilized
by ruffed grouse:
Green leaves, blades, flower heads, or seeds of clover,
bluegrass, dandelion, burnet and sedges.
Fruits of bearberry, birch, bitter and chokecherry,
redosier dogwood, elderberry, hawthorn, huckleberry,
blueberry, mountain ash, raspberry, serviceberry, Oregon
grape, currant, rose and snowberry.
Buds and/or flowers of willow, aspen, cottonwood, birch
and maple.
Habitat occupied by grouse depends greatly upon the
stages of forest growth and effects of logging, grazing,
and fires. Since the control of fires, the amount and
quality of habitat is determined chiefly by forest management
practices. The quality of ruffed grouse habitat may
vary with the intensity of grazing in stream bottom
areas. Forest grouse generally benefit from improvement
in range conditions in mountain and foothill areas.
Habitat Management Suggestions
Grazing
Deferred or moderate grazing preserves nesting, feeding,
and brood cover. Fenced exclosures, particularly around
water sources, protect vegetative cover and food.
In mountain and foothill areas, prohibiting livestock
overgrazing of stream bottom vegetation, especially
in winter and during the spring nesting season, is beneficial
to maintaining quality grouse habitat.
Overall, logging may be considered beneficial to ruffed
grouse since it results in the establishment of a mosaic
of subclimax vegetation formerly provided only by fire.
This is especially true in western Montana were forest
vegetation is frequently very dense. Cooperation between
forest and wildlife managers is more likely to insure
that ruffed grouse and other forest-dwelling grouse
will remain abundant in the forests of Montana.
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