This state's classification carries no date range for the species.
No current open season: ruffed grouse isn't listed anywhere in the 2026-2027 Digest's season-dates table. Illinois' wild population has been largely extirpated statewide since the early 1900s due to habitat loss; only small, non-established remnant or reintroduced pockets remain, in northwestern Illinois, Pope County, and from 1982-94 releases in Union, Alexander, and Jo Daviess counties. IDNR publishes no statement citing an exact closure date; it's inferred from the species' absence from current regulations.
Illinois' wild ruffed grouse population has been largely extirpated statewide since the early 1900s due to habitat loss/fragmentation, and no current season exists. Independent ornithological and historical sourcing sharpens that into three named, disjunct remnant pockets, each with a different, documented origin: a small population in extreme northwestern Illinois (Jo Daviess County) that may represent either a genuine remnant native population or wild dispersal from Wisconsin/Iowa across the state line; a very small Pope County population traceable to wild-trapped-bird releases in the late 1950s/early 1960s; and populations in Union and Alexander counties (plus a portion of Jo Daviess) resulting from further wild-trapped-bird releases in 1982-94 that sources describe explicitly as not considered established. None of these three pockets supports a hunting season. This is a closed, non-huntable species statewide. But each is a real, named location worth distinguishing rather than treating the whole state as a single undifferentiated absence.
No formal population survey program exists for this species in this state.
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