Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Bullets
During homesteading grouse were called chicken because that was part of their name proper. The pinniated grouse's common name was the greater prairie 'chicken'.
Back in the day the greater prairie chicken was here in droves. Ruffed grouse weren't hunted as much as the prairie chicken because the greater prairie chicken was a 2 or 3 times the size of a ruffed grouse and much easier to hunt. There were more prairie chicken and sharptail grouse than ruffed grouse prior to 1950.
I remember my dad telling me how a flock of a hundred or more prairie chicken would roost in one big tree and he could snare or shoot his legal limit starting with the lowest branches of birds, so as not to disturb the birds sitting higher up. The whole hunt took a few minutes. The flocks felt safe when roosted and wouldn't fly and that was their demise.
Loss of habitat to the sodbusters plus hunting exterminated the greater prairie "chicken" by the 1950's in Alberta.
|
Spruce hens/grouse we're supposed to be similar to the prairie chickens for ease of capture.