Quail populations should trend upwards in 2010.  A perfect fall, winter, and spring have blanketed the landscape with filaree, broomweed, and other quail-friendly vegetation.  And, although whistling activity is getting off to a slow start, the pace is picking up.  We started our official counts at Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch the week of May 15- across two counts thus far our average has been just below 5 roosters/stop.  That's a bit low for us, but hopefully we'll see count number climb over the next month.

Let me rephrase the opening paragraph.  IF quail numbers don't improve, given optimal weather conditions, then we (i.e., quail professionals) have got some "explainin'" to do. 

At the recent Texas  & Southwestern Cattle Raisers convention in Ft. Worth, I offered a repertoire of hypotheses on "quail decline" in Texas.  The following is a brief recount.

1. Weather rules. There is no "quail decline" per se. "If it rains we'll have quail, if it don't we won't." Per this hypothesis, we need not be overly concerned about management, but just accept that quail abundance is beyond our management. In really good years (like this one is shaping up to be weather-wise) "even the poor people have quail" (as one colleague chuckles).
2. What quail decline? Whatever "quail decline" may be operative is not new; it may have started a hundred years ago. As we only have formal data on quail trends in Texas since 1967 (i.e., roadside counts conducted by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department), I'll offer these data (see figure) to suggest that the "quail decline" of which we speak today is a more recent phenomenon. Bobwhite abundance in the Rolling Plains has been below the long-term mean 12 of the past 16 years. The 2009 count was the lowest since counts began. Trends are similar for other ecoregions. See : TPWD 2009-1020 Quail Forecast for trends in your part of the state.
3. Habitat change (loss). This has been the prevailing paradigm as bobwhites have skidded over all of the southeastern states, including Texas. It's easy to swallow this one as "the cause" when you're east of the 98^th meridian, but if you look at areas like Shackelford and Stephens counties, such change is not readily apparent (to my eyes anyway). Have various exotic grasses (e.g., bermuda grass, guineagrass, buffelgrass, K-R bluestem) decreased usable space for bobwhites? Is Texas wintergrass a wolf in sheep's clothing? 
4. Predators. Every moment of a quail's being is shaped by the threat of predation. Raptor trends (e.g., Cooper's hawks) are on the increase. The "quail-threat" raptors (e.g., Cooper's hawks and northern harriers) are quite mobile; perhaps they focus on different wintering grounds based on prey availability (including quail). "Mesomammals" (e.g., raccoons) and other threats (e.g., feral hogs) are enjoying the best of times (perhaps partially in thanks to our penchant for feeding deer, ah what a fine example of "Hippocratic management"). Has the armada of predators simply swamped the bobwhite's ability to cope?
5. Fire ants. Just one subset of the predator equation, but one touted repeatedly over much of Texas. What toll do fire ants exact on quail chicks? On arthropod abundance which is vital to quail chicks?
6. Disease and parasites. Historically dismissed by my profession, but widely questioned by locals are problems like coccidiosis. Has the increasing use of broiler litter in east Texas spread various poultry diseases? Does our propensity to rely upon farm-reared bobwhites pose a Pandora's jar for disease spread to the wild quail? This is a real "black box" in the realm of wild quail management. (RPQRR has three studies ongoing to assess these threats). Does aflatoxin-contaminated deer corn impact quail negatively? Has an increase in some birds (e.g., grackles, white-winged and Eurasian collared doves, and perhaps even wild turkeys) introduced pathogens to bobwhites?
7. Contaminants. Could various heavy metals (e.g., lead) be accumulating in the environment? Not necessarily from lead shot (which could cause a problem locally), but from automobile emissions? What about various insecticides? Could various insecticides (e.g., avermectin) affect (indirectly) important insect foods for quail? Has Texas' boll weevil eradication efforts spelled trouble for quail?
8. Overhunting. Again, historically dismissed by those who hunt quail. But have today's hunting methods (e.g., ATVs, more dogs, better dogs) and greater commercial hunting pressure (i.e., cost of a hunting lease) turned up the heat on quail?
9. Global warming. As temperatures increase, does "heat" (in a general sense) take its toll on quail? Will La Ninas rule? Hot, dry summers (as are characteristic of La Ninas at our latitudes) shorten the nesting season, and curtail a hen's propensity to nest (or re-nest).
10. Conspiracy theory. Is there a cascading of events that have, in toto, made our landscapes quail unfriendly? Dr. Fred Guthery says "America's landscape has Colin cancer" (Colin is an old world term for quail-like birds). "Hippocratic management" encourages one to "first do no harm." But what does the combined result of deer feeding (e.g., aflatoxins and raccoon-hog release), a more fragmented landscape, a proliferation of farm ponds, too many pilgrims, and/or other insidious effects of human population growth have on quail? Have we created the "imperfect storm" for quail?
11. Other theories. One fellow from east Texas argues chiggers are to blame. Some say we're coddling bobwhites, and their habitats, too much when we advocate understocking.

That's a long list of suspects when you're looking for a smoking gun-and there are undoubtedly others I'm open to hearing them, so e-mail me (d-rollins@tamu.edu) with yours.  As you ruminate on these, ask yourself these questions:

• Is there a logical quail connection?
• Has "it" changed over the past twenty years?
• When did "it" change?
• Are there counter-instances where your hypothesis fails?

One colleague (who dismisses talk of quail decline) asked me what I was going to say when this fall's quail population is "back to normal." I replied simply "Thank you Jesus!"

Thinking in the mind of a quail rancher, if someone mentioned trapping rodents to monitor abundance of quail, most ranchers would start day dreaming--not many people think outside the box. I often hear people say "20 years ago we had more quail than you could shake a stick at, but now the quail are few and far between . . . and nothing's changed." The fact is something has changed... quail are not as abundant as they once were, and often we're at a loss as to explain why.

Maybe we need to start looking outside the box. At RPQRR, we have started sampling quail for disease and parasites. Not much has been done on that in relation to declining quail numbers.  While we do not yet know the cause of the "quail decline," we can track those population trends. Right now we are conducting roadside surveys, spring cock call counts, and helicopter surveys, and some possibly related factors. What is another suite of animals that is on the bottom of the food chain, secretive, and thought to be common everywhere?  Small mammals, i.e., rodents.   Rodents and quail live similar lifestyles; they both eat seeds, both do better in healthy grasslands, and both are very popular menu items for coyotes and hawks. In theory we would be able to monitor abundance of rodents and possibly see a correlation between them and quail.

Each summer and winter at RPQRR we monitor rodent abundance. We use "Sherman traps" to sample in eight different habitat types until we obtain 100 "trap-nights" in each habitat type. The traps are checked in the mornings and we use the "mark/ recapture method", where we clip a small patch of hair off the rump to determine recaptured animals. The three major species here are hispid cotton rat, fulvous harvest mouse, and the pigmy mouse.

While there are not enough data at this point to quantify the correlation between quail and rodents, we have observed a negative trend in the number of rodents. Quail numbers have been on the decline at RPQRR since 2007 and rodent abundance has shown a significant decline since 2008 (almost 90%).  Our winter hawk abundance was down about 80%.  Now, take that same question "nothing has changed so what happened?", and apply it to the rodent populations. Is it a result of predation?  A dry fall-winter-spring of 2008-09?  Are we (in our quest for quail) better off with fewer rodents, or when the grass moves ahead of you with cotton rats?  Does an abundance of rodents buffer the impacts of predation on quail?  Our goal here at RPQRR is to study the "quail equation."  Sometimes, as we solve for "x" (more quail), it encourages to look outside the box.

Left, left, leave some brush left.

If you think quail are neat,

Then don't clear all that mesquite.

Loafing cover, plum and lote,

Save a little, don't miss the boat.

Sound off, bob-white.  Sound off, bob-white.

Bring it on down now . . .

BOBWHITE BRIGADE, BOB-WHITE BRIGADE!"

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"Quantifying Shrub Response to Fire and Herbicides"  -  The RPQRR has an abundance of prickly pear, especially on the western half.  As the dense cacti hinders bird dogs, the most dense patches are targeted for control. To complement our efforts with prescribed burning, we are working with Dow AgroSciences to evaluate several herbicides for their impact on non-target species, i.e., the sometimes undesirable side effects of controlling prickly pear.  Two rates (full rate and half-rate) of four herbicides (Tordon 22K, Surmount, Grazon Next, and Chaparral) were applied via helicopter in late-April on burned and unburned sites.  We have tagged individual shrubs which serve as "quail houses", including catclaw acacia, catclaw mimosa, wolfberry, algerita, hackberry (and others) and will monitor their survival for two years post-application.  Cacti mortality and forb dynamics will also be monitored on a seasonal basis.

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