Grouse Priority Area Siting Tool Launches

Pennsylvania’s state bird, the ruffed grouse, has suffered dramatic population losses due to the statewide scarcity of young forests and large-scale West Nile virus die-offs. To offset those losses, the Pennsylvania Game Commission has created a tool to identify prime grouse recovery areas.

“The Game Commission recognizes that all conservation partners must work smarter, not just harder, to restore the King of Thunder,” said Lisa Williams, the agency grouse biologist who identified West Nile’s role in Pennsylvania’s grouse-population collapse.

The Grouse Priority Area Siting Tool (G-PAST) identifies areas with landscape features that stave off mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus. When combined with information on local grouse populations, G-PAST identifies priority sites where disease risk is low and probability of grouse benefit is high.

G-PAST has the potential to be a game-changer in grouse restoration, because it focuses the attention of all conservation partners on areas where grouse can best recover.

“We know high-quality grouse habitat is the best way to offset losses from West Nile virus,” said Matthew Schnupp, Game Commission Bureau of Wildlife Management director. “But if we create better grouse habitat in places with high disease risk, we may be setting grouse up to fail.

G-PAST supports at least a half-dozen habitat objectives in the agency’s Pennsylvania Ruffed Grouse Plan. The Game Commission has several large-scale habitat restoration projects planned or already being implemented in high-priority landscapes identified by G-PAST. The identification of landscape-scale restoration priorities can serve as a model for other Eastern states to proactively restore grouse where it makes the most sense.

To check out G-PAST, go to http://bit.ly/PGCG-Past. Once there, zoom into your area of interest. G-PAST uses a color-coded format of Good (orange), Better (blue) and Best (purple), so it’s easy to find important restoration sites in an area. There also are links to view a quick how-to tutorial, to contact the Game Commission grouse biologist and to view agency webinars on grouse management. More-advanced users can upload their own GIS data layers to see if their projects fall into grouse priority areas. All users can contact the agency grouse biologist to find out if local grouse populations occur in an area where they plan to create habitat.