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Tennessee Hunting Forums
Waterfowl & Other Winged Interests
Quail
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<blockquote data-quote="TheLBLman" data-source="post: 5130610" data-attributes="member: 1409"><p>I'm in general agreement with you poorhunter, but want to elaborate a bit on your thoughts.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I disagree a little about the predators.</p><p>I believe over the decades, not only have quail predators increased, but they have evolved in becoming more efficient at killing quail. To some extent, I believe they evolved to hunt turkeys, particularly young turkeys, <em>DURING DAYTIME</em>, and inadvertently also became more efficient at stumbling into quail.</p><p></p><p>I'm talking mainly about coyotes & bobcats above. When I was young, areas with lots of quail in Tennessee had very few bobcats and <u>zero coyotes</u>. As bobcat & coyote populations exploded, it was many years, perhaps decades, before they are regularly observed hunting in mid-day. What are they hunting? I believe it's mainly turkeys. But in their daytime pursuit of young turkeys, they stumble into more quail (than they did when they were more nocturnal predators).</p><p></p><p>Now, yes, the hawks have always only hunted during daytime.</p><p>What's changed is that we've had a steady "continual" increase in the sheer number of hawks. Again, when I was young, they were low in numbers, and most were shot on sight if they came around a farmhouse.</p><p></p><p>Today, we must have somewhere between 10x and 100x more hawks in West TN than going back over 50 years ago when quail were abundant. This raptor increase has been every bit as "continual" over the decades as has the decrease in quail.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TheLBLman, post: 5130610, member: 1409"] I'm in general agreement with you poorhunter, but want to elaborate a bit on your thoughts. I disagree a little about the predators. I believe over the decades, not only have quail predators increased, but they have evolved in becoming more efficient at killing quail. To some extent, I believe they evolved to hunt turkeys, particularly young turkeys, [I]DURING DAYTIME[/I], and inadvertently also became more efficient at stumbling into quail. I'm talking mainly about coyotes & bobcats above. When I was young, areas with lots of quail in Tennessee had very few bobcats and [U]zero coyotes[/U]. As bobcat & coyote populations exploded, it was many years, perhaps decades, before they are regularly observed hunting in mid-day. What are they hunting? I believe it's mainly turkeys. But in their daytime pursuit of young turkeys, they stumble into more quail (than they did when they were more nocturnal predators). Now, yes, the hawks have always only hunted during daytime. What's changed is that we've had a steady "continual" increase in the sheer number of hawks. Again, when I was young, they were low in numbers, and most were shot on sight if they came around a farmhouse. Today, we must have somewhere between 10x and 100x more hawks in West TN than going back over 50 years ago when quail were abundant. This raptor increase has been every bit as "continual" over the decades as has the decrease in quail. [/QUOTE]
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