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​What's New
Vice-President Mike Amman with more great publicity for pine barrens and the NW Sands. Check out this video, produced by and recently aired on Discover Wisconsin. Mike does a great job highlighting and explaining the challenges and successes on the landscape we all love.
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Please share this video with your friends, as it provides a great introduction to the work happening in NW Wisconsin.
Host Bob St.Pierre is joined by Mike Amman and Ashly Steinke, both volunteers with the Wisconsin Sharp-tailed Grouse Society, for a conversation about prairie grouse, barrens habitat, and dog training. When most folks think about sharp-tailed grouse and greater prairie chickens, they automatically think about the large expanses of prairie grasslands across the Dakotas or Montana or Nebraska. There is, however, a somewhat “secret” population of sharp-tailed grouse in Wisconsin’s brushland habitat.
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Episode Highlights:
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Steinke, an ecologist with Audubon Society, shares his personal passion and professional knowledge focused on growing Wisconsin’s sharp-tailed grouse population through habitat management and brushland connectivity.
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Amman, a forester for Wisconsin’s Bayfield County, discusses his perspective on the importance of the state’s brushland habitat and the wildlife dependent upon this unique form of grasslands habitat, even though he’s also passionate about the state’s Northwoods forests.
This Spring, Board of Directors member Ashly Steinke has been reaching out to private land owners in the Oulu Grasslands and getting commitments to do habitat work for Sharptails! Over the past decades, bird numbers in this are have been steadily decreasing due to brushy encroachment. These farmers and land owners want the birds back, they just don't know how. That's where Ashly steps in. In combination with the local NRCS office and forest techs
from the Ruffed Grouse Society, a plan of action is being put together to get these: pastures, hayfields and creek banks back into usable habitat for Sharp-tailed grouse. This is a new direction for WSGS and outcomes are yet unknown. However, we must try, exploring all avenues and options to keep these grouse on the landscape in NW Wisconsin. Where there is a will, there is a way and we are optimistic about the future of this area.
There has been some fantastic habitat work being done in the NW Sands as of late. First, the Douglas County Wildlife Area. The area shown here was previously covered in secondary forest growth, the natural progression of the land when modern fire suppression policies are in place. To keep the properties where birds reside healthy, humans need to step in. Over 4,000 acres of 10 - 20 year old timber were harvested from this area. It's a big move and we applaud the managers at the DWCA for taking it on. There were 16 dancing males on this property in spring of 2024, we expect that number to grow rapidly.
On the left is a prescribed burn at the Bass Lake Barrens. The Bayfield Co Forestry Department is working hard to open this property up and make it suitable for Sharp-tailed grouse. The Bass Lake Barrens is critical stepping stone in the NE corner of the NW Sands and it being in as good of shape as possible is key to the corridor plan functioning as intended.
Thanks to you, our members, the expansion to the Motts Ravine SNA was approved by the WDNR. Wasting no time, land managers had a roller chopper clearing the land within days. Similar to the Bass Lake Barrens spoken about above, Motts Ravine is an essential piece of the puzzle. When in usable shape, Motts Ravine will be a stepping stone on the way toward the Douglas County Wildlife Area. These are once in a generation events happening while you are a member of the Wisconsin Sharp-tailed Grouse Society. They are happening because of your support and because you care!
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The 10 year Wisconsin Sharp-tailed Grouse Management Plan draft has been released by the WDNR and is available for public comment. Several of our Board members are on the Sharp-tailed Grouse Advisory Committee and have put many long hours into it's language and long-term consequences. This process, wildlife management plans available to the public, is a uniquely "Wisconsin" process and we ask that you please participate. Please take a look at the document above and submit comments to Robert.Hanson@wisconsin.gov. This is a good plan and will have great results for all species that use the Pine Barrens of NW Wisconsin.
An excellent newly released publication written by Dave Peters describes the details of the formation of sand barrens in northwestern Wisconsin, the human inhabitants of the area through time, and the unique assemblage of plant and animal species that the barrens support. Additionally, a few of our board members are quoted in the text along with their current research! Click the book or it's underlined title to purchase.
Exploring a Rare Pine Barrens Landscape
By Dave Peters
Published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press
A few miles from the confluence of the St. Croix and Namekagon Rivers in northwest Wisconsin lies a rare preserve of pine barrens that offers one of the most significant opportunities in North America to preserve, restore, and manage a large-scale barrens community. A tiny remnant of the millions of barrens acres that once covered the region, the Namekagon Barrens were formed over thousands of years by unfathomable amounts of glacial sand and repeated fires. This is a land of scrub oak and jack pine, blueberries and sweet fern, the ideal habitat for wolves and sharp-tailed grouse.
Just as compelling is the land’s rich human history, from Paleo-Indian hunters to Ojibwe berry pickers and from failed immigrant farm efforts to the habitat specialists who manage it today. This first-person account of a trek across the barrens sets the land’s unusual natural history as the backdrop for a multilayered story about the impact of people on a vulnerable landscape.
We continue to hear tales and tantalizing hints of Sharp-tailed grouse on private land across the state of Wisconsin. Do you now or have you in the past, had sharpies on your property, we want to know about it! Please send us an email at tbell@wisharptails.org and give us the full story. Up until recently, private land management has largely been ignored and we want to change that. WSGS currently has members with deep knowledge and expertise in the areas of working farm and recreation land management. Reach out and let's put a plan together!
