So, what exactly happened to make 2007 such an odd year for hunters? Wasn't the cycle on the upswing?

"I figured that something definitely happened to our young-of-the-year birds," Horton said. "We had good numbers of drumming, which showed we had good survival of adults through the winter, and we had some good initial brood reports, and then, nothing.

"There's a lot of speculation, but we don't really have any answers, because we can't monitor grouse like you can other birds. With pheasants, we have the roadside count. We have people reporting how many hens they're seeing and how many chicks the hens have with them, so we get this midsummer check-in that tells us how the pheasants are doing. We don't have anything like that for grouse. They're so secretive there's no method for counting. It's all anecdotal. You talk to a guy and he says he flushed a bird the other day and there must have been a dozen of them, but those stories are few and far between and really don't tell you much. There are lots of theories out there and I honestly don't know if we can design a study that would -- or a survey that would -- be cost-effective to get that data."

Asked to surmise what might have happened to the grouse in certain areas of the state, Horton said it's a thought he has, but it will take study to count his theory in or out.

"There can be a delayed effect we see with weather," he explained. "One of the things I've been investigating is whether the previous winter affects the survival of the next year's young. Look at the winter of 2006. We didn't have any snow to speak of in a lot of places. Grouse need snow and without it, they have to burn a lot of energy to stay warm. So, hens come into the breeding season light because they've been burning a lot of energy to stay warm. So, they don't have any reserves. In some cases, they may have even been burning some muscle mass. When you're starving that's what happens, you start sucking up muscle mass.

"Then spring hits and you get a little flush of catkins to feed on, and then it's time to start making eggs. And they're going to do that. They're going to nest. The problem now is they can't put as much energy into each egg, so the chicks don't have as much of a yoke sac when they hatch. They need this to live off for 10 to 12 days.

"This is all speculation, but what if the grouse chicks don't have much of a yolk sac? Now they only have a four-to five-day window to learn how to feed themselves to get enough bugs to get by or they'll be in trouble. Now, what if you're into the second year of a drought and there aren't many bugs? Initially, you see these hens and they have 10 to 12 young running around with them, but three weeks later they've all died because there are no bugs to eat."