I guess my point is still being partially missed.
“It doesn’t matter “when” the mortality happens during a 365 day period…it only depends on HOW MUCH THERE IS.”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I’m not advocating for a 365 day grouse season, but if you kill 20 grouse during September-October or you kill 20 grouse from September-March, there’s still 20 dead grouse.
I can see your point about added stress, but I also don’t feel like any grouse I jump while shed hunting, collecting sap, scouting deer, hunting turkeys, etc are going to die because they had to fly away from me???
Then factor in the grouses massive and natural population swings? Human pressure has very little to do with the grouse numbers in any given year.
I disagree. There’s more implications to hunting grouse than the number you kill. Like I said, when you hunt grouse in the winter it will disrupt their natural survival strategies and patterns. When pressured, they will leave their scare habitat and food sources to try to avoid being killed. You don’t kill every grouse you make contact with. Typically I kill 1 grouse for every 5-10 I flush. If I hunt them in the winter and kill my limit in a day, I could have potentially flushed/contacted 25-50 grouse. As I said, in the winter when they’re pressured, those grouse may end up starving themselves just to avoid being shot. So yes while you killed your limit of 5, you may have caused the death of many more.