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It's amazing what sometimes comes from a conversation between hunters. In this case, what started as a few guys talking about why there weren't more grouse in their neck of the woods ended up as perhaps the single largest scientific wildlife study in the history of North America — a study that may have changed the future of ruffed grouse management in the Appalachian region.

When the final report of the Appalachian Grouse Cooperative Research Project came out last summer, it concluded nearly a decade of analysis that reached across eight states (Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and West Virginia), mobilized more than 20 scientists, and individually examined scores of ruffed grouse.

"It's definitely one of the largest wildlife research projects ever conducted in terms of the number of people and the size of the study area," said Dr. John Edwards, Associate Professor of Wildlife and Fisheries at West Virginia University.

Gary Norman, Forest Game Bird Project Leader for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries — along with Edwards and Dr. Dean Stauffer of Virginia Tech, one of the driving forces behind the massive project — agrees with that assessment.

"I don't know of any other [wildlife] study comparable to this. The number of birds was probably a record, that's for sure." As for the multi-state, multi-disciplined study team, Norman adds, "It was quite a great army of expertise."

According to Stauffer, Virginia Tech's Professor of Wildlife Science, he and Norman "started talking grouse in the fall of 1995." That conversation was about the oft-asked question of why ruffed grouse populations in the Appalachians seemed to be declining, and whether the long hunting seasons that are typical in states like Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia contribute to that decline. Then, Stauffer said, "the question 'What is the effect of these long hunting seasons?' led to 'We don't know all that much about the ecology [of grouse] down here. Dang, we need to be doing some grouse research.'"

The project started to simmer in the spring of 1996 when representatives from Ohio, Kentucky, Maryland, and West Virginia came together to discuss their research needs, and by the fall of 1996, they were trapping birds and collaring them with radio transmitters. A 1997 grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, a Pittsburgh-based non-profit, expanded the research into Pennsylvania and beyond. "The Mellon funding," said Edwards, "was what got us to the next level."

So how is it that empirical data on the ecology of the ruffed grouse, one of the most carefully studied birds in the U.S., could be lacking? Quite simply: geography.

The seminal research on ruffed grouse was done by Gordon Gullion and Gardiner Bump in the aspen/poplar forests of Minnesota and New York, respectively. But, as the results of the AGCRP point out, the ecology of those northern grouse populations is very different from their Appalachian cousins.

AGCRP researchers found that one key difference between the two populations is that the health and breeding success of Appalachian grouse populations is tied directly to hard mast production, especially acorns. This is significant because, unlike northern populations where birds rely on buds and catkins from the young poplar forests in which they live, Appalachian grouse have to find cover in early successional forests then look for their meals in areas that have oaks mature enough to produce acorns.

As Bob Long, who worked as a graduate student on the AGCRP before becoming the Upland Game Bird Biologist for the Maryland DNR, explains, "Just cutting trees doesn't always equal good grouse habitat in this region. It's not like up north where every tree is both food and cover."

According to Norman, the importance of acorns as a food source was "something that we had been overlooking. Not only do grouse need young forest, but they need young forest in close association with mast-producing forest nearby." Without that combination, birds expend more energy and are more frequently exposed to predators as they move from cover to food and back.

The AGCRP also definitively answered the original question about the impact of hunting on grouse populations. "Hunting is not causing this population decline," said WVU's Edwards. "Clearly, the lack of early successional habitat due to changes in timber cutting and changes in attitudes has led to the decline."

To Norman, this result was greeted with mixed emotions. "It's comforting to know that we're not hurting grouse populations [through hunting], but it's a little bit of an empty feeling to find that the one thing we could easily control isn't the thing that will bring back grouse populations." Instead, the results "all point to habitat, oak mast, even weather as driving factors. All things that take longer to change."

Now that the scientists have weighed in on the problems, will the AGCRP be a major factor for state wildlife managers in the Appalachian regions when planning for grouse? "If it's not, Lord help us," chuckles Norman. "I know [in Virginia] we're going to try to use it at every turn now that we've got the best information."

Maryland's Long agrees. "We're definitely going to look to this when we're developing our management strategies," he said.

The AGCRP results will also come into play when establishing seasons and bag limits, especially in reply to past criticism that season lengths were contributing to ruffed grouse population declines. Generally, both the academic and management groups agree that, as Stauffer puts it, "We can keep on doing what we've been doing without a negative effect."

There was a cautious tone, though, on swinging the pendulum the other direction. "I would not suggest that this means we can go ahead and increase seasons or bag limits," said Stauffer.

Long, who counts setting seasons and bag limits as part of his job description, also suggests staying the current course on season lengths. "We're probably going to keep them just as they are [based on the study results]," he said.

In short, the AGCRP study gave wildlife managers one of the strongest tools they've ever had. As Edwards points out, "To some extent, we quantified a lot of things that grouse hunters already knew. But we had to have the science to back that up."

And all that took was a few grouse hunters, getting together to talk about their favorite bird.

Robert Hilliard's book 'A Season on the Allegheny' will be available from Bonasa Press in Fall 2005.