In the Pennsylvania Wilds Region, a ruffed grouse stronghold overlaps with the state’s elk range. It’s also near other high-priority woodcock and brook trout habitats. With $50,000 in funding from RMEF, the Ruffed Grouse Society & American Woodcock Society (RGS & AWS) is working with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry (PBF) and other partners to help improve habitat for both grouse and elk—while helping a large stand recover from a catastrophic fire from about 35 years ago.

The Two Rock Run fire was an unplanned forest fire that burned 10,000 acres on the Sproul State Forest.

Within the Two Rock Run stand, Sproul State Forest foresters implemented timber salvage operations, worked with volunteers to plant a variety of canopy and soft mast trees and created early successional habitat for golden-winged warblers. After the fire and subsequent salvage logging, the residual stands were composed of red maple, black birch and pin cherry stump sprouts with scattered oak stump sprouts. Blackberry and huckleberry covered most of the stand.

Even decades after the Two Rock Run fire, the burned stand comprises one age class that will stay in a state of “arrested succession” unless the stand is managed. The red maple stump sprouts have been repeatedly browsed at an early age, subsequently resulting in poorly formed stems. If the maple is thinned, the oak regeneration should start producing seed, as the oak stump sprouts are in the 25- to 30-year-old window.

This initial 265-acre project will focus on noncommercially removing less desirable trees (especially red maple) that are too short and small diameter for pulpwood markets.

The treatment goal is to establish early-successional species and create suitable habitat connectivity for various species dependent on early successional habitat, providing more abundant browse for elk. To create a patchy habitat mosaic, the areas to be treated are broken into 50- to 75-acre blocks with some stands left uncut.

This habitat work will occur in high-priority, high-elevation ruffed grouse areas. Elk, golden-winged warblers and other Pennsylvania species of greatest conservation need will also benefit from this habitat work.

The large size of the project and the multiple wildlife species that benefit from regenerating oak stands along Two Rock Run require a landscape-scale, long-term approach. RGS & AWS is calling the project the Keystone Collaboration, given its central location in the state and the proximity to other RGS & AWS high-priority habitat projects, including the woodcock habitat work that RGS & AWS and partners are doing at Bald Eagle State Park as well as Trout Unlimited’s brook trout project on Beech Creek.

RGS & AWS’ collaboration with the PBF at the Sproul State Forest is part of its broader collaboration with PBF and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) on landscape-scale forest management. RGS & AWS, TNC and other partners are helping to accelerate implementation of existing state forest plans by bringing additional resources. RGS & AWS is grateful for funding from RMEF, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Chesapeake WILD program, the U.S. Forest Service’s Landscape Scale Restoration program and others.

 

This article by Ben Larson was originally published in the summer 2026 issue of Covers magazine from the Ruffed Grouse Society & American Woodcock Society. Photo by Charlie Cropp.