Yesterday we discussed the basics of hunting late-season quail, looking at how the birds behave differently than they do earlier in the autumn.
But with late-season hunting comes another question: Should we or shouldn't we?
One of upland hunting's most heated controversies is the questions of whether late-season quail hunting hurts bird populations.
First, well-regulated hunting during the fall poses no threat to quail numbers. One Missouri study compared two populations, one which sustained 73-83 percent losses to hunters, another only 33 percent. In the months after the season, the less heavily hunted birds simply sustained a higher rate of death from starvation, predation, and exposure than did those already thinned by the shotgun.
When hunting seasons extend long into the winter, however, some of the birds hunters kill are those who've already learned to avoid predators and might well otherwise live on to breed in the next spring. Surveys conducted on Fort Bragg Military Base in North Carolina show quail mortality highest throughout the month of February, due in large part to losses to raptors.
The problem is especially severe in areas where quail lack high-quality brushy cover. Moreover, quail are most vulnerable to predation after a covey has flushed and the singles are whistling to one another, so a late-season hunter can put quail at great risk to predation without actually firing a shot himself.
Where the Birds Are
Nowadays, the Great Plains are the best for bobwhites, with Texas being the promised land. In a year with enough water, hunters in Texas may see 20-25 coveys a day. Virtually all shooting in Texas is done on private, leased ground, although day rates of $50-$75 per gun per day don't price the visiting hunter out of the field.
Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri offer excellent bobwhite hunting as well. Tennessee, Kentucky, and southern parts of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana are all holding their own and hunters might see three to five coveys or more in an afternoon's hunt.
Once upon a time, of course, quail and the Southeast were synonymous in the minds of hunters, and not just those wealthy enough to hunt the grand plantations, either. Bobwhites were an Everyman's bird in a region of small farms and piney woods.
Today the small farms, with their quail-sheltering fencelines and hedgerows are gone, and the woodlots are no longer burned annually to produce cattle forage. Bird populations have suffered.
"Bobwhite quail can no longer be considered a normal byproduct of modern agricultural and forestry practices," concludes Mark Whitney of the South Carolina DNR. Along the eastern seaboard quail have been victimized by clean farming and suburban sprawl.
The Bobwhite's Future
What does the future hold for bobwhites? Dave Howell, Midwest regional director for Quail Unlimited, acknowledges that quail populations are in a long-term downward slide in many places. Education, he stresses, is critical. "Many landowners want to help birds, but they don't know how and they expect the measures they try to produce results right away. You can't create magic habitat overnight."
Quail Unlimited supported reauthorization of the Conservation Reserve Program, although so far it has proved a mixed blessing for bobwhites, according to Howell. Early years of many CRP fields planted to fescue and pine offer good quail cover, but once the fields reach three to five years old they're too tall and thick.
CRP nevertheless provides QU an opportunity to work with landowners to manage their idled acres for quail. Plantings of quail-friendly grasses like Korean lespedeza and orchard grass, strip disking, food plots, and prescribed burning can all optimize the potential of CRP acres. QU also supports the concept of filter strips--bands of idle cover along streams that help slow erosion and can provide excellent quail habitat.
QU produces a bulletin on how to manage CRP land for quail. For more information, contact Quail Unlimited, P.O. Box 610, Edgefield, SC 29824-0610, phone 803-637-5731.
Copyright (c) 1996 Philip Bourjaily. All rights reserved.
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