This state's classification carries no date range for the species.
NJDEP states plainly: "Ruffed grouse rely on young forest habitat which currently comprise only 5% of state forest lands. This lack of habitat has caused grouse populations to decline below the level necessary to support a hunting season. In an effort to reduce the decline, the grouse hunting season is closed statewide. No exceptions." This is a structural, indefinite closure rather than a year-to-year dates question, expected to remain closed until habitat recovers.
Ruffed grouse hunting has been closed statewide since 2019, but NJDEP's own species page and its active recovery program still give a real, current answer to where the species survives. NJDEP states plainly that grouse were historically more prevalent in the hardwood forests of the state's northern counties than in the southern pinelands, and its ongoing habitat-recovery effort is explicitly targeted at WMAs in the northern portion of the state, concentrated in and around the Kittatinny Ridge/Valley and northern Highlands (Sussex and Warren counties).
Season closed statewide since July 2019 (population too small to support hunting, per the Fish and Game Council), but NJDFW confirmed to be actively continuing a habitat-management/population-recovery plan alongside modified drumming-count survey protocols (building on a 2009 NJDFW WMA pilot) -- a “monitoring continues despite closure” case similar in shape to CA/CO/IL sage-grouse/prairie-chicken. No standalone annual report or press release found; feeds an ongoing recovery-plan process rather than a discrete yearly document. Active-but-underdocumented, not_yet_published rather than no_program.
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