I read the latest issue of the Missouri Conservationist and came away with an unmistakable "glass half empty" view of our long and short term quail prospects. The author, whom I have talked with previously at length, is a dedicated "quail" man and I certainly came away with the feeling that he was up to the challenge of preserving what we have, with the hope of increasing the overall quail population with active habitat management. The tone of this article however, is brutally straightforward, changes in farm practices have managed incidentally to put us out of the quail business. Our previous bounty of quail in the 60's and 70's were purely an accident of the farming practices in vogue at the time. We are unlikely to see those days again. Efforts underway currently will provide pockets of quail habitat, limited hunting in the present, and reservoir of a gene pool should the habitat ever become wide spread enough to allow expansion. We have lost countless acres to large scale agriculture, and surprisingly an equal amount to maturing timber, european fescue, cedar, and black locust encroachment, as well as canopy overgrowth in open areas. I have long thought and said so many times, that the cold wet spring/early summer weather is an equal culprit, this article bears that out as well, though we are helpless to change the weather, the article does support the idea that superior habitat will help quail survive in higher numbers. Habitat that is superior helps us with the predator issue as well. All in all, I came away with the unmistakable feeling that I now know how the native americans felt as the buffalo slid from uncountable, to unsustainable in a generation. We all felt in this enlightened conservation era we live in this could not happen, but it did, I begin to feel powerless because the scale of work necessary is so overwhelming, as are the costs. I'm out saving what i can, 40 acres here, 10 acres there, we need to save 3200 acres here, 1600 acres there to have any meaningful impact. The resources, both in terms of money and manpower are not available, most importantly the willpower is not there among the majority of private landowners. Somebody, give me some hope please.
Missouri Quail- a dismal accessment
- Thread starter oldandnew
- Start date
Cant give you much hope OldandNew and other Mo quail hunters but still have a few quail where I have crp,cp33 and good habitat. Being a grain farmer and also a quail hunter for over 30 years I have seen it go from 3 to 4 coveys in a spot to ,if your lucky, one or none. Even if the habitat hasnt changed in a certain spot doesnt mean it hasnt changed for the worst all around that spot. Being a farmer I understand some of the reasons for the habitat lost but still can have both good farming and fair habitat. I have always wondered what keeps the quail from being inbred which in turn will make the quail weaker. If we had a lot of quail could see where they could mingle but since we dont have many where does new genetics come from? Used to hear of the fall quail shuffle but never actually knew if it was true.
Actually, to hear a farmer sportsman talk about the issues knowledgably as you have does encourage me. I do agree that isolated pockets of birds are vulnerable for a great many reasons. Local storms, lack of genetic diversity, hunting pressure with no escape areas even. I used to hear that hunting helped with the fall shuffle, by scattering birds, which then would join other coveys, with coveys so few and far between now, who knows. There is a spring scattering too, just in pairs, I would guess the pairs would pioneer new areas, if avaialable but that's a big if! I'd settle for a decent spring, and see what we get, hopefully a population rebound, and a sign we are on the right track.
Cobblestone
New member
The good quail habitat ieft are isolated islands. There are few to no corridors for populations to expand even if the habitat in areas has been improved.
You know I've been thinking a lot about this article and others as well and they all seem to think that the "new" or "clean" farming practices of today are here to stay. And while that may be true for the larger farmers, one thing thats been coming to mind is maybe with the rise in cost of living, fuel prices going through the roof and food prices continuing to rise, I hear of a lot of people planting there own food sources. And maybe with these new food sources being planted on small acreges, might this just be what we are needing as far as good habitat and a return to the farming practices of old. Back when every farmer no matter how much land you had, planted small patches of oats, wheat, ect. I dont know, just something I was thinking about.