Nebraska · UplandRuffed grouse

Ruffed grouse has no known population anywhere in Nebraska today, and there is no sub-state region that can honestly be described as a current hotspot — this is a closed, researched answer, not a gap, but it is neither a density breakdown nor a genuine "uniform statewide" case, since the species is not huntable or findable anywhere in the state. BONO (NGPC's own ornithological reference) documents the species as extirpated: a disjunct eastern population (subspecies B. u. mediana) once occupied wooded riparian habitat along the Missouri River Valley and its tributaries in eastern Nebraska, but had mostly disappeared by the late 1880s and was rare by 1900. The last known state record is a pair of specimens taken near Nickerson, Dodge County, in the lower Elkhorn River Valley — dated to around 1905, though BONO itself flags some question about their authenticity given the location and timing. A 1968 reintroduction attempt at Indian Cave State Park (Nemaha County) failed, with no birds reported after 1973; parallel reintroduction attempts in adjoining parts of Kansas and Missouri also failed. Range maps suggest the Rocky Mountain subspecies (B. u. incana) may once have occurred on the Pine Ridge escarpment in extreme northwestern Nebraska, adjoining South Dakota's Black Hills population, but BONO states plainly "there are no known reports from that area."