Quail habitat

[Mergie Master]

Originally posted by Candor:
We lost our quail in the Upstate before fireants were that prevelant.

That's true. By the time I was seeing the ants in Greenwood County the birds were pretty much non-existent or at least numbers were already down below making hunting them feasible here.

[Calibogue]

There are places in SC where they thrive to the point of 4-6 covey rises per hour! That is as good as it gets anywhere in the Country!
The problem is a culmination of all the above aforementioned, not one alone. The properties that can put all the pieces together again can and will have birds.

[LabLuvR]

When I first moved here five years ago, there used to be a covey of about twenty birds that I would see on a regular basis. Now, I rarely see more than six at a time. Fire ants have been here the whole time, the only thing that seems to have moved in during the five years is yotes. I find it difficult to believe yotes are the problem, but it sure is funny on the timing.

BTW, I never once thought about hunting them. Imho wild quail should be off limits to hunting. Every other species with such problems has been protected I often wonder why not the bob white?

[LabLuvR]

I think you both make valid points. How is it that someone is able to have that many covey rises in an hour? I don't remember that many back in the good ol days as the norm.

The problem can't be all predators, the only common denominator besides maybe pesticides is the fire ant, which still hasn't been proven, just theorized about.

[GMAC]

C - You make my point for me. If maintaining a population requires intensive management, including aggressive predator control, then that population is not healthy. Quail numbers have collapsed. Fallen 85% since 1965. You even hear talk about them becoming endangered if present trends continue. Predation has not been the cause of this. Predation is not a negative pressure on a healthy population of a prey animal. It is a negative pressure on a population that is already stressed. Consider the pintail. Its not the predators. Its the loss and fragmentation of grassland habitat that permits predators to efficiently locate the nesting hens. Predator control may have its place, but its only a stopgap measure. It does not address the root problems.

And I never said that only Cooper's hawks feed on quail. I do believe that they take at least as many as sharpshins and marsh hawks combined.

[Calibogue]

I couldn't disagree with you more!
You are saying that with the right habitat exist great populations of wild quail and predation is not a factor affecting wildlife populations toay.
It is well understood in the wildlife biology community that increased predation is a major "negative" factor.
So according to you logic, quail pops.in Albany and the Redhills are not healty? There are Crackers in GA and FL that would shoot you dead with a statement like that. The bobwhite will NEVER be listed as endangered (I said never) b/c there are too many places they stil thrive.
There are many places with excellent habitat and with the great habitat they do not thrive b/c predator populations are historically higher than ever before among other factors.
What si the "root probem?"
Lab, up until the early 80's that is kinda bird hunting I grew up with. On good plantations (GA)4 rises/hour is the break even for a good day.

[Catdaddy]

The last time I went quail hunting,we killed 21 with a labrador retriever. We found 14 covies.
I have not been since and that was many years ago.
The flat lands between Black River and Lynches River were some of the best quail producing habitat in the Southeast. People came from all over and paid high dollar leases just to hunt quail.

IMO, it doesn't take but a 5-10% reduction in nesting success (and brood rearing) to cripple a species over a 20 yr period. We also see this in ducks but on shorter cycles and determined by rain in the breeding grounds,instead of unknown causes. When the weather comes,they rebound.

I think the following factors have played a part in that 5-10% reduction, with no one factor contributing soley as the culprit.
----------


The increase in avian predators since DDT was banned.

Fire ants-doing damage to eggs and while newly hatched chicks are wet. After that they are home free from fire ants.

Increase in the egg eating predators

Possibility of the exploded deer population eating egss for calcium needs.(put salt blocks all over your property)

Some experts believe the newer deer resistant varieties of bicolor lespedeza have high levels of estrogen which can make hens infertile.


Habitat(and this is last on my list as far as I'm concerned. I can show you some of the best habitat in the southeast that is void of quail.....prescribed burned,edge cover,food plots,bugging areas,soybeans,etec.)

[Mergie Master]

House cats are another serious problem for quail. They'll sight hunt, scent hunt, and sound hunt the bobwhites. I personally watched a barn cat sound hunt a bob one spring and kill it at my father-in-law's place in Georgia.

[GMAC]

Since I started hunting, I have watched bird hunting go from something any boy with a dog could do, simply by asking an old colored woman if he could hunt behind her house, to something only zillionaires can afford, and even they don't have wild birds. In the 1960's and 1970's, few people made any focused effort to control predators. But birds were plentiful.

I have no idea what the root problem is. I have talked about that until I'm all talked out. Everybody has a theory. Fire ants? the extinction of the small farmer? pine monoculture? ag chemicals? loss of habitat? fragmentation of habitat? loss of genetic diversity? the elimination of "edge" in modern farming practice? I've heard all of these and more, as have you. Nobody seems to really know. The only way to have quail these days appears to be to have a huge spread, like 10,000 acres, and to spend incalculable amounts of money on predator control and intensive management. And many of these guys can't even make it work.

[Calibogue]

They made no focused effort to target and control the predators in the 60-70's b/c there #'s were nothing like what we have today!

[Sportin' Woodies]

kinda hard to explain depredation permits for hawks to your local gw.

there are though, a ton of hawks around right now.
small med large. and an ass of owls-byebye wabbits.

if its illegal to pick up a feather from one, whats it "cost" to shoot one?

[GMAC]

Yeah, housecats are a big problem. I know folks that have put a trapper on their property, and caught more cats than they ever imagined. Like dozens!

[Calibogue]

I loathe a housecat!
You are right, there are many factor involved and most ares are affected by many of them.
I never considered the deer population explosion in the 80's until about 2 years ago.

[LabLuvR]

Supposedly pine plantations have had an effect on turkeys along with development. If that is the case, maybe the pines are an issue, along with feral cats and fire ants. Hell if I know, but I sure wish there were huntable coveys again. As a kid that was my life.

[GMAC]

I can tell you this: Our farm in Lee County (which we no longer have, and is now the Lee County Heritage Preserve)was quail paradise. For years, we never saw a deer. And it was exactly when the deer started showing up, that the quail began to decline. Coincidence? Who knows?

[Slaya]

Grandad shot one deer in his whole life in Lee County, with a side by side on a bird hunt. They just didn't have them back then. They did have bob white quail.

[grey ghost]

You ought to google Quail Surrogates. They have the feed/water house combo. They had a piece in my QU mag about the effects of fire ants and determined that they are a non factor in the decline of population, but as stated early feral cats are a big problem. We have a farm that has a large covey of birds. We are going to thin it in the next 2 years and start a quail program, coming from southwest georgia we grew up quail hunting, but we are going to start the predator management this year. That means shooting every coyote we can call, every racoon and opossum that we see, and every hawk or owl that flies over head. As long as there is cover and food quail will thrive, it is the predators that kill them off.

[BOGSTER]

Originally posted by Calibogue:
They made no focused effort to target and control the predators in the 60-70's b/c there #'s were nothing like what we have today!

Are you saying we have more coons,possums,and feral cats then we did back in the 60s-70s??

What makes you say so?

Fire ants yeah, but an explosion in small predator populations? please explain.

I know about as much about quail as i do about how huntincosta has a girlfriend, but i wouldn't think deer would be a cause in quail decline.

[Mergie Master]

Bog,
There were more coon hunters, possum hunters (yep people used to hunt them), trapping (I ran a line myself for years), and farmers would shoot birds of prey on sight back then. The laws weren't as strict and I haven't met an old time farmer yet that didn't think, rightly or wrongly, that a bird of prey was trouble for them.

But I hadn't even thought about the deer population. The timing on the deer coming in thick and the birds going out is about right too.

But....

Where's the connection? Stomping the eggs? Eating them for calcium? Not debating the issue just curious. [img]graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

I'd much rather have quail than pine goats. I grew up walking behind pointers, setters, drops and rip-raps with my dad. I lived for opening day of bird season.

I'd give anything to get my 12 year old grandson on a real wild bird hunt like I used to enjoy. It's truly a Southern Gentleman's sport. I miss it something awful.

[BOGSTER]

You make a valid point Merg.
But I would think quail thrived long before people were hunting small predators for sport.
I understand that trapping for pelts was somewhat mainstream at the turn of the century, but damn.

i wish i could've grown up hunting quail as my father did.