Wisconsin · UplandSharp-tailed grouse

Sharp-tailed grouse in Wisconsin is a clean, narrow range case: DNR's own habitat-management page states the species has contracted from statewide historically to a range where most birds are now found in the northwest, isolated in scattered fragments of young, open pine/oak barrens and savanna within the Northwest Sands Ecological Landscape, with the department's Northwest Sands Habitat Corridor Plan working specifically to reconnect those fragments. Namekagon Barrens Wildlife Area (far northern Burnett and Washburn counties, with its northern edge touching the Douglas/Burnett/Washburn county corner) hosts the largest sharp-tailed grouse population in the state and holds active lek sites; Crex Meadows Wildlife Area (Burnett County) and Douglas County Wildlife Area are the other named core properties. This is a confirmed no-hunt case: when a season is held it is a lottery-permit hunt restricted to Zone 10 (Burnett and Polk counties specifically, narrower than the full Northwest Sands range), but WI DNR announced no season at all for 2026. Both its Sharp-tailed Grouse Advisory Committee and agency biologists agreed the population couldn't sustain a hunt this cycle, even within that already-narrow zone.