Comments on: O Quail, Where Art Thou? http://blog.newsok.com/outdoors/2012/10/31/o-quail-where-art-thou/ The Oklahoman's Ed Godfrey is your guide to the great outdoors Wed, 15 May 2013 19:50:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 By: Steve http://blog.newsok.com/outdoors/2012/10/31/o-quail-where-art-thou/comment-page-1/#comment-26559 Steve Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:59:44 +0000 http://blog.newsok.com/outdoors/?p=5086#comment-26559 The decline of quail is due to drought, changes in land use, clean farming and ranching (too much spraying for weeds and brush that benefit quail), overgrazing by bad cattle managers, and the conversion to small crop fields to Bermudagrass and Fescue (so cattle people can abuse their pastures more easily). We are not burning rangeland like we should and cedars and brush are taking it over as well. Vegetation is too thick in many areas due to fire being taken out of the system.

The 60′s, 70′s and 80′s were wet overall. Not the case since the late 90′s until now. Just a few wet years and the rest were very dry. The past two were devastating and we are still in a extreme to exceptional drought over much of the quail’s range.

I think it is funny “seasoned” hunters talk about “chicken hawks killin’ the quail”. Chicken hawks were killing quail in the 60′s 70′s and 80′s just like they are today. We also had bobcats, coons, and everything else people blame for the “reason” quail are going away.

Habitat, Habitat, Habitat, and DROUGHT.

We get some wet years and people start becoming better range managers, you will see the quail numbers surge back. They are just like rats, mice and other small animals; they have high reproductive capacity and can explode back onto the scene on a good, wet, mild year when its not 110 for 4 months.

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