This guest post is from Cody Altizer of the Give for Grouse Initiative. Please contribute to this important campaign here.
There was a time, in our not-so-distant history, that an iconic upland species called our young forests home. All across Appalachia, their drums thundered in the woodlands, and the Ruffed Grouse, the bellwether of all forest wildlife, was the King of Spring.
The story of Appalachia is the story of the Ruffed Grouse. For generations, timber cutters and loggers breathed life into the species with every tree cut, and load of logs hauled. Our rural communities were built on a culture of logging and, as a result, our economies and wildlife flourished. But over time, as logging has decreased and forests have matured, ruffed grouse populations started declining, their home range shrinking.
Ruffed grouse, a species dependent on young forest habitats, is disappearing from our Appalachian forests. According to the Ruffed Grouse Society, their populations have declined by at least 50% throughout the Eastern United States over the last 20 years, and current projections indicate that numbers will be zero in our lifetime. As black and white as the problem is, the solution is equally crystal clear. Our forests need better and more active management. We must log our forests and log them responsibly. If we don’t, we’ll lose one of the most special and iconic species that call our mountains home.
Unfortunately, however, that solution is met with opposition. Anti-logging and preservationist forest management advocates are the loudest voices in the room. They argue the opposite of what science tells us – that active forest management results in healthy forests, healthy wildlife, and healthy communities in rural America. Their campaigns, though well-intentioned, are killing those same things with kindness.
That’s why we created this billboard campaign – to proudly stand up for our Appalachian way of life, advocate for ruffed grouse, and support the logging industry. We want to educate the general public on how influential forest management is for the health of our ecosystems and economies. Forest management is a nuanced art; logging is the illustrator of a region’s ecology and the author of the story that is a rural community’s economy. It is woven into the fabric of rural communities all across Appalachia, and without it, our culture, wildlife, and the livelihood of those who call this area home suffer.
We partnered with the Appalachian Habitat Association to bring this idea to life. It was important that this billboard checked two boxes: 1) It needed to say logging. We didn’t want to hide from the word or tiptoe around it. Logging is a good thing, and it’s time we embrace the word, the lifestyle, the livelihood, and the life it creates. 2) It needed to have a ruffed grouse front and center. Slowly but surely, ruffed grouse have become a forgotten species, the Give for Grouse Initiative exists to ensure they will always have a voice.
If you feel the cause is worthy, visit HabitatVA.org to donate. Your tax-deductible donation supports a logger, the ruffed grouse, and the foundation upon which life in rural Appalachia was built.
