TheLBLman
Well-Known Member
Speaking mainly about Tennessee, in many areas, a loss of good contiguous quail habitat may in fact be the single largest cause of the population decline. Some will say the single biggest cause was the introduction of fescue grass, but then, that was something that also broke up the good contiguous quail habitat.I don't think we can point to loss of habitat as the main cause.
It's just that even the single largest cause may not be even half the problem.
I think one thing we're only recently discovering is that, to thrive over multiple nesting cycles, quail need a much larger contiguous acreage of at least "good" habitat than was previously thought. A few hundred contiguous acres just may not be enough.
With all the continued increasing housing & industrial subdivisions, along with "clean" farms continuing to break up what was once more contiguous quail habitat, the future for quail remains relatively grim, no matter how much more we find out about what's caused the declinations.
Just because we find out more, doesn't mean we will be able (or willing) to do much differently.