Friday, August 22, 2008

Ruffed Grouse Program Being Offered


The Woodland Owners Association of Centre County will be hosting a program on ruffed grouse and woodcock biology and management. The program is entitled Ecology and Managment of Ruffed Grouse and American Woodcock in Pennsylvania. Mark Banker, a senior biologist with the Ruffed Grouse Society, will be presenting the program at the Foxdale Village Meeting Room in State College, Pennsylvania on Tuesday, September 16th from 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM.

Mark began with the Ruffed Grouse Society in 1998 in Michigan and has been the Regional/Senior Biologist covering the southern Appalachians since 2000. Prior to that Mark was a biologist for Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Patuxent, MD.

Ruffed grouse and American woodcock habitat has declined by approximately 1.6 million acres in the last 50 years in PA and is now at a 50 year low at 10% of our forest area. This has not only meant declines in grouse and woodcock populations, but also many songbirds and mammals like the snowshoe hare and Appalachian cottontail.

Mark will present practical tactics for managing forrests and fields for these species and discuss the effects of habitat declines in PA on grouse and woodcock as well as other species.
For directions to Foxdale Village go to: http://www.foxdalevillage.org/location.html

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