Spring counts of sharp-tailed grouse in North Dakota were down 13% statewide from 2024, and it appears production wasn’t good enough to offset the losses.

According to Jesse Kolar, upland game management supervisor for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department in Dickinson, results from August roadside surveys are still a work in progress, but hunters can expect fewer sharptails on the landscape.

North Dakota’s grouse and partridge season opens Saturday, Sept. 13.

“Sharptail are down statewide, in every district,” Kolar told the Grand Forks Herald. “Their reproduction was very poor this year, but we also saw fewer adults during our roadside counts. This is one of the worst years for reproduction that we’ve seen for sharptail in the past 20 years.”

The average brood size and the ratio o

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