This state's classification carries no date range for the species.
Occurs in Adirondack evergreen forests (WMUs 5C, 5F, 6F, 6J).State-endangered species; illegal to hunt statewide. Ruffed grouse hunters in these WMUs are specifically warned by DEC to avoid misidentifying and shooting spruce grouse, which has an orangish-brown tail band vs. ruffed grouse's black tail band.
State-endangered and illegal to hunt statewide, but DEC runs the most actively documented spruce grouse program in this batch: a ~1,000-bird international translocation/recovery effort in the Adirondacks that just concluded (December 2025, announced January 2026), plus a Recovery Plan calling for regular DEC occupancy/habitat surveys at three-year intervals. A clear “monitoring continues despite closure” case (contrast with Maine's already-documented finding of no active spruce grouse monitoring there). No discrete 2026 population count or survey report found distinct from the translocation-conclusion announcement itself; population was estimated at 175-315 breeding individuals (SUNY-ESF, monitoring since the mid-1970s) prior to the translocation effort.