Why is that grouse being so friendly? Pa. researchers need your help to learn why

Did you ever wonder why Pennsylvania’s state bird can sometimes be overly friendly or slightly aggressive to humans?

The Pennsylvania Game Commission is looking for the public’s help to see why ruffed grouse, a wild animal, sometimes let their guard down and spend time around humans.

The birds are normally found in brushy areas of the woodlots where their brown feathers blend into the forest floor.

The agency is conducting a ruffed grouse genetics study in cooperation with Pennsylvania State University. The research aims to determine whether the commonwealth’s grouse population shows signs of splitting into distinct subpopulations and if “tame” behavior is linked to genetics. The results of this study will ensure habitat management efforts are targeted to improve and maintain grouse population connectivity.

A #WildSciPA video available on the Game Commission’s YouTube channel shows just what that looks like.

The commission would like Pennsylvanians to report the location of any “tame” grouse they see this spring by sending an email to grousecomments@pa.gov. That email should include the person’s name and phone number, date of the sighting, location of the encounter and a description of the grouse’s behavior.

Ideally, those sending in a report should also include GPS coordinates for the encounter site. If that information isn’t available, the person reporting it is being asked to provide as much other detail about the location of the encounter as possible, listing things like the county and/or township, the name of the property (like a particular state game lands, for instance), the property address, the closest intersection and similar details.

Field staff will plan to visit sites where “tame” grouse sightings occurred to capture birds and collect a genetic sample from each.

“You may be familiar with mail-order kits, where a simple saliva sample or mouth swab can unlock all kinds of information about your own ancestry or information about the breed background of your dog,” Reina Tyl, Game Commission grouse biologist, said in a news release. “We will be sampling these ‘tame’ grouse in essentially the same way, swabbing their mouth and sending the swab off for genetic analysis.”

All grouse, from which samples are taken, will be released immediately afterward at the same sites they were captured.

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“Gaining a more complete understanding of the genetic diversity of Pennsylvania’s grouse population is critical to ensure proper management of our beloved state bird,” she added.

In a Game Commission video about grouse, Lisa Williams, chief of the Wildlife Recovery Division for the Game Commission, said the tame behavior of grouse is reported to the agency several times a year. She said people have assumed the birds have become drunk from eating wild berries, and others theorize that the birds are a genetic throwback to old pre-settlement genetics of the species.

“If you read the settler accounts, ruffed grouse was a much more docile, calmer bird," she said.

Sometimes the birds approach humans to chase them away from their spring breeding territory.

 “If you are fortunate enough to come across one, enjoy it while it lasts,” she said about the small game birds. The behavior only lasts a few weeks during the spring breeding season. “It is really a unique experience if you are in the springtime woods,” Williams said.

Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him atbwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook@whipkeyoutdoors ,Twitter@whipkeyoutdoors and Instagram atwhipkeyoutdoors.