Spruce Grouse

Description

There are four species of grouse in Alaska, but only the Spruce Grouse is native to the Chugach Region. Spruce Grouse, also called Spruce Hen or Fool Hen, are common throughout forests of the area year-round but are excellent at camouflaging themselves. Males have a black throat, a rust-colored band on their tail, and a small, bright red strip above the eye. Females are a speckled rusty brown to gray with barring on their white bellies.

Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) were introduced to the Matanuska Valley in 1988–90 and theKenai Peninsula in 1995–97, and now occur in the Chugach Region. It is the larger of the two grouse species and has intricate red-brown or gray-brown plumage. In contrast to the Spruce Grouse, which has a red-brown coloration near the tip of their tail, the Ruffed Grouse has a broad, black band near its tip. Displaying male Ruffed Grouse expose a rich black ruff of neck feathers, giving them their name. They are relatively easy to detect in the spring when they “drum” perched on a log or stump, the low sound created by the vacuum of air left behind theirrapid wingbeats.

Habitat and Status

As their name suggests, Spruce Grouse lives in forests among spruce, birch, and mixed forests. This grouse is a permanent resident of the area and does not migrate. It can be found all over the Chugach Region except immediately along the coast. The Spruce Grouse mainly gets around by walking, typically only flying a short distance from the ground to tree branches or to escape a predator. They are notoriously tame around humans, hence the name “Fool Hen”. They have an omnivorous diet until winter when they feed almost exclusively on spruce needles that make their meat almost unpalatable because of the tannins and resins.

Spruce grouse are likely to continue to do well in the Chugach Region as the climate warms. The spruce forest is expected to expand both upslope into alpine tundra and downslope along the coast (Hayward et al. 2017). Ruffed grouse populations in the Chugach Region may ultimately be constrained by the limited distribution of Quaking Aspen.

Ruffed Grouse are native to the boreal forest north of the Alaska Range and historically did not occur in the Chugach Region. They were introduced to the Matanuska Valley in 1988 – 90 and the Kenai Peninsula in 1995–97 and have continued to spread throughout much of Southcentral Alaska.

Spruce Grouse are widely distributed throughout the Chugach Region wherever spruce occurs.

Traditional Use

Grouse is one of the many birds taken for food to supplement a fish-heavy diet. Being a mostly flightless bird, they were relatively easy to hunt. Grouse was mentioned regularly in stories from Elders. One Elder, Pete Kompkoff, recalled hunting for grouse after school, “We’d hunt grouse with our slingshots and stuff, and those kind of activities…you know…when you’re out of school…” Additionally, the Chugach people would hang up the grouse stomach with stones inside to dry, and then to use later as a baby rattle.

The traditional harvest of Spruce Grouse was recognized as easy and for kids, not real hunters. In one story, a man mocks another by calling him a grouse hunter:

The people from Port Wells and Chenega came to Sheep Bay and had a big meeting in the smoke house. It was winter. They were getting ready to hunt mountain goat next day. The Sheep Bay people said, “We will go with you, but we are not going to hunt very hard.” They knew the places and were just going to show the others the way. One Chenega man said, “I am not going to let that Sheep Bay man beat me. He is eating red salmon soup.” The Sheep Bay man answered, “All right, you eat spruce-hen soup and I don’t, but you will not leave me behind. I will beat you hunting.” He was a goat hunter (Birket-Smith 1953).