Alaska · UplandSooty grouse

Sooty grouse (formerly called blue grouse) is confined entirely to Southeast Alaska's wet, evergreen coastal forests, from Haines to Ketchikan, and does not occur anywhere else in the state. ADF&G's own species profile describes it occupying practically every island and cape in that stretch, with one named exception: Prince of Wales Island. Two separate ADF&G attempts to establish the species (and its relative, dusky/blue grouse) outside Southeast entirely failed — the state's own official transplant history records unsuccessful attempts to introduce spruce grouse (1957, 1959) and blue/dusky grouse (1962-1964) to Kodiak Island, both ending with no birds remaining, reinforcing that sooty grouse's Southeast Alaska range is a hard habitat boundary, not just an underexplored one.