Montana · UplandSpruce grouse

Montana's regulations call this species "Franklin's grouse" (the Rocky Mountain subspecies of spruce grouse) and regulate it under the same combined statewide Mountain Grouse season/bag as ruffed and dusky grouse, but its real range is the narrowest of the three: the Montana Field Guide describes it simply as found in "Montana forests across western Montana," and it is a conifer specialist tied to spruce-fir and lodgepole-pine stands specifically, unlike dusky grouse's broader range into drier, more open forest types and central Montana's isolated mountain ranges. Documented study locations cluster in the northwestern quarter of the state (north of Columbia Falls, northeast of Missoula), consistent with the species requiring the moister, denser conifer forest types concentrated there.