News Stories

There are many underlying factors that have affected the bobwhite decline across its range and they are all interrelated, but the overarching issue is habitat loss/change. But before I expand on factors affecting bobwhite populations it’s important to acknowledge that the population has been in decline for a long time. Looking at the Breeding Bird Survey data, starting in 1966 going forward bobwhite populations were in decline in MD, so realistically this probably means that populations were declining before the start of the BBS (see attached file) so when I talk to people and they mention, similar to you, that there were lots of quail around in the '80s and '90s its obviously true compared to current population levels, but populations were on a steady decline and had been for quite some time.

Looking at historical imagery allows us to get a sense of the magnitude and timeline of habitat change, though I don't have imagery for the whole shore I have a few photos covering Chino Farms (now called River and Field Campus, but I'm sure everyone in the birding community will still refer to it as Chino). The first is from 1937 and as you might imagine all the farm fields are small, surrounded by hedgerows or overgrown fencerows and there are a few isolated farm houses, I can't say what was being farmed but I bet there were many fallow fields. The next image is from 1964, now there is a mix of remnant small fields with some larger ones and a large housing development has started. Then 12 years later in 1978, all the small fields are gone, the housing development is complete and there are additional houses around. So, if we can extrapolate what happen in northern QA to the rest of the shore there was a dramatic shift on the landscape from the mid '60s to the mid '70s. Even if quail were not in decline prior to the BBS this change across the farming landscape would have had major impact on populations.

Other factors that could affect quail populations besides habitat change/loss and development (this would include associated issues with development including cats, habitat fragmentation, invasive species, etc) include mammalian predators, avian predators, pesticides and deer populations. I don't have empirical data on this, but I bet fox populations are much higher nowadays compared to 50 years ago, this is based on talking with people in their sixties and seventies who grew up on the shore and as a kid shot foxes for their pelts. This was common way for kids to earn some extra money, this does not happen anymore and pelt prices have dropped significantly and as a consequence there is very little trapping now. Avian predator numbers are much higher than they use to be, obviously a great conservation success, though I'll point out that kestrels and harrier populations are in decline but they are closely associated with grassland habitats. Creation of large ag fields is directly related to the increase of herbicide and synthetic fertilizer use in the sixties, fallow field rotation was no longer necessary and clean farming (perfect mono-cultures) became the norm. Deer were rare in the '60s, certainly not the case nowadays, and we all know how destructive deer can be on understory vegetation.

When habitat disappears, usable areas for quail become smaller and smaller. Then predators, including nest predators, have much smaller areas to search for nests and chicks, foxes can cover small areas much faster which means they can cover much more area in shorter periods of time. This all gets exacerbated with snow, when they have less places to find cover avian predators have an easy time finding them. When you have lots of habitat (nesting and winter cover) there is less pressure on the birds because predators have a lot more area to search. It's important to keep in mind that habitat required for quail in today's landscape is very different than what was available historically, no longer is there habitat on the landscape as a result of the by-product of farming. In order for quail populations to thrive you have to create the habitat and almost as important you have to manage it. There are several places on the shore where there are good quail populations and the two things that they have in common is that there is good habitat made up of native grasses and wildflowers coupled with areas that provide winter cover and these areas are managed on a regular basis.

Chino is one of these areas, there is another series of farms outside of Easton that is another, and one thing to keep in mind is that these are working farms - applying the same pesticides and herbicides, have the same predator pressures, same deer numbers, have varying amounts of urbanization, yet quail are doing well here. The underlying thread is that there is good habitat and it is managed. This was what the article was trying to get across, Chino and these other properties can serve as models as to what is possible in today's landscape. Quail are habitat specialists in a way, whereas turkeys are not and they do not have the same predator pressures as quail do so it is not a good comparison.

This email is long enough, but one word on released bobwhites. There are very, very few proven cases where released birds were able to survive and maintain a viable population. In fact, often when birds are released and there are a few wild birds around it can cause major issues for the wild birds because predators are drawn into the area to take advantage of the "dumb" released birds that do not have any survival instincts and the wild birds get picked off because of the elevated number of predators. So not only does releasing birds not work it can be detrimental to existing wild birds.