North America’s sea of grass once covered an area from Illinois to Wyoming and Canada to Texas, touching or encompassing around seventeen states. This “Great Plains” grassland ecosystem is most simply divided into three ecotones: tallgrass, mixed grass, and shortgrass. Within these ecotones there are many ecosites, such as the Sandhills of Nebraska or the Flint Hills of Kansas. These ecosites occur on gradients of longitude, precipitation, and soil.

With spring in full swing and summer just around the corner, many hunters are planning their fall and winter hunting trips. While most excursions will take place in their home state or surrounding states, some will come to a crossroads: do I fly or drive for that hunting trip several states away?

There are certainly benefits to both, but flying always raises some concerns for our beloved firearms. 

Read more at projectupland.com.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a new proposal to expand hunting and sport fishing opportunities on 90 National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) and one National Fish Hatchery, encompassing 2.1 million acres. It is the largest proposed expansion in United States history and adds to a list of expansions beginning in the George W. Bush Administration. 

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If you own a bird dog, you’ve heard the adage that “it takes birds to make a bird dog.” Regardless of advances in technology and training devices, you can’t avoid the fact that it takes real birds to teach a dog about the expected behaviors while on a bird hunt. Finding suitable birds can be a challenge, which often leads to side projects such as housing your own pigeon flock or building quail recall houses.

Versatile hunting dogs that will be used to hunt small game or track big game come with additional training needs beyond just the birds. Finding suitable furred animals or blood for tracking brings a whole set of unique challenges and considerations.

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There are a lot of dogs out there. It doesn’t take a master internet user to find someone, somewhere that has a litter from which they’d love to sell you a pup at almost any price you could imagine from innumerable (and potentially questionable) lines. A brief foray into breed-specific or hunting Facebook groups will quickly dissolve any illusion that there are universally-practiced ethics and procedures around dog breeding. It’s a lot of information to digest if you are new to buying dogs and it can be overwhelming when you’re trying to get oriented.

Read more at projectupland.com.

Throughout the rural sprawl of the American West, the sagebrush ecosystem has slowly been disappearing, replaced by invasive annual grasses and conifers.

With it, sage grouse are disappearing, too.

According to new data from the U.S. Geological Survey first reported by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, there are 80 percent fewer male sage grouse at leks compared to 1965, an annual loss of roughly three percent–one percent more than what was previously believed. Further, half of that loss has come in the last 17 years. This report highlighted five reasons sage grouse are in a steeper decline: habitat conversion to cropland, energy development and mining, conifer intrusion, climate change, and cheatgrass fueling more and hotter fires.

Read more at projectupland.com.

Training and conditioning are top priorities for the off-season, but it can be fun to mix up the routine a bit to avoid boredom and to continue developing the working partnership between you and your dog. If you’re fortunate to live in an area where truffles grow wild or are cultivated, learning to truffle hunt with your bird dog can be a fun and rewarding activity.

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Hunting dogs are as old as the hills and guns have been around since the 1300s, but the idea of hunting with dogs and guns together didn’t really catch on until nearly two centuries after firearms first appeared on the battlefield. And even though the words dog and gun both trace back to the 14th century1, they weren’t combined to form the term "gundog" until the mid-1700s and didn't become part of the common vocabulary until the mid-1800s.

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Is that a Doodle?
…No, it is an Irish Water Spaniel.
I thought water dogs were from Portugal?
…It is a spaniel.
Oh, a Portuguese Water Spaniel!
…No, an Irish Water Spaniel.
Are you sure it is not a Doodle? It looks like one.
…I’m sure.

This common conversation is one way that you can tell that your 65-pound, curly brown gundog is a rare breed. But the Irish Water Spaniel was once the third most popular hunting dog in the U.S. When the founders of the American Kennel Club established the AKC in 1878, this common dog was included as one of eight breeds that could be registered—all of which were gundogs.

Read more at projectupland.com.

Hunters throughout the uplands walk many miles each season in pursuit of various quail species.  From the bobwhites in the Southeast, Gambel’s and scaled quail in the desert Southwest, Mearns and mountain quail in the hills, and California quail throughout the west, several million birds are shot on the wing, loaded in game bags, and eventually cleaned and consumed. Sure, most hunters will note the sex of each bird harvested, but there is one more piece of data that is often skipped by most hunters: aging their birds. For many game birds, distinguishing between juvenile and adult is fairly easy, and quail are no exception. In fact, quail lend themselves to determining the actual hatch date of a juvenile to within just a few days of when the bird pipped its way out of a quarter-sized egg. This information can add a bit of scientific fun for an upland junkie, but can also be useful information to help explain previous reproductive output and possibly even help guide future habitat management.