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Can Ruffed Grouse and Woodcock Be Saved? | The MeatEater Podcast Ep. 845

MeatEater Podcast Network

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Steven Rinella talks with Karl Malcolm of the Ruffed Grouse and American Woodcock Society and Brody Henderson.

Topics discussed: Forest health issues; less and less access to good ruffed grouse and woodcock hunting; the story of population decline due to habitat; scaling up conservation work into outcomes; financial woes; technology and glowing woodcock; definitions of birders; and more.

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Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction: Carl Malcolm, Ruffed Grouse Society
06:52 – Forest Health Is the Real Story Behind Grouse Decline
17:59 – Pre-Settlement Forests and the Five Lost Disturbance Drivers
27:24 – The Problem With the Word "Logging"
37:28 – Scaling Conservation: Can Habitat Work Pay for Itself?
55:34 – Conservation Funding Crisis and Declining Hunter Participation
01:07:30 – Hunting, Birders, and What It Means to Actually Care About the Land
01:22:39 – Woodcock: The Bizarre Migratory Outlier
01:35:37 – Grouse Reintroduction, Predators, and What Actually Moves the Needle
01:53:38 – Northern Strongholds, Snowpack, and Tribal Fire Management
02:07:43 – Conservation Coalitions, Leopold Foundation, and How to Get Involved

20 Comments

@nickolson1203 6 months ago

Clicked on this so fast. Save my upland birds!

@SilenceDoGood4th 6 months ago

Finally. The conversation that needs to be had

@scottschaeffer8920 6 months ago

At the risk of being controversial, I hope leaders of the Sierra Club listened to this excellent podcast. I worked as a DNR biologist for 34 yrs, fought the good fight to get strategic logging done on our state parks & wildlife areas-an unbelievable political, bureaucratic, unscientific ordeal. God Speed to the RGS and their mission.

@andyursitti9920 6 months ago

New Hampshire RGS member here. Great episode on a topic near and dear to my heart.

@chaseYUP 6 days ago

Logger from northern mn, listening to this while cutting a second entry pine thinning. Cutting the smaller trees to better the bigger trees. I appreciate your guys perspective on the work we do. I’ve only been hunting the past few years and I had no idea that I was so lucky to have an abundance of roughed grouse where I work, I keep my gun in my truck and shoot grouse on my way in and out of our logging roads. I see 4 times as many moose than white tail too, awesome episode thanks for the education!

@tylerbetthauser7647 6 months ago (edited)

These conversations remind me of talks we'd have as a family when I was younger. After a big dinner. My uncle was a DNR officer in Wisconsin and most of the family hunted. Everyone sat in a circle in the family room and would swap hunting and fishing stories. Boy do I miss being a kid.

@camerannC 6 months ago

My new favorite episode. Flows very well. An extremely important issue.

@VeteranAngler 6 months ago

As a Northern Michigander up here in the "tip of the mitt", this resonated with me so profoundly. What a great episode!

@loganwoodruff9581 6 months ago

I met Karl at an event I attending when we both worked for the US Forest Service. I recognized him solely from his voice, which I had heard many times on the MeatEater Podcast. Great guy and great episode. Happy to see him working to conserve our upland birds!

@mathewgillis5411 6 months ago

Fried breaded ruffed grouse nuggets is Absolutly unreal and somthing I strongly look forward to

@JordanBorowicz 6 months ago

Imagine if the birders paid for state and federal stamps to provide money to conservation.

@jasonhaff9757 6 months ago

Karls such a great intelligent speaker

@VanIsleOutdoors 6 months ago

Lifetime RGS member here. I love the RGS approach because it recognizes the potential synergy between logging and conservation work. In my neck of the woods, there is a ton of logging... and the grouse seem consistently plentiful.

@davidmonnin2792 6 months ago

An informed, well spoken young man.
Thank you for the content!

@Call-Me-Ryan-Thx 6 months ago

Man I got my first woodcock this last January! I didn’t even know what it was at first. It flushed like a quail when I was out of my duck blind taking a leak back in a woods. I didn’t even know they were in north TX