doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Quail can't compete with farming....

Quail can't compete with farming. At least not in Southwest Georgia where you'll find the nation's most productive land for peanuts and cotton. In the "tri-state area" (GA, AL, FL) I can point out thousands of acres of recently converted pinelands that are now planted in corn, cotton, and peanuts. Clearcut land with nothing but pine stumps will still bring $3,000/acre because it can easily be converted. I understand the basic economics... it's just sad that in a place where Bobwhite quail was once king, wild covey flushes are becoming increasingly rare.

We had a beautiful quail hunting lease in deep Southwest Georgia not far from where Alabama, Florida, and Georgia all meet. Today, we visited what was left of it. With farming leases bringing in 20 TIMES more revenue than hunting leases, quail can't compete.

On a good note, we were able to find another, even larger, tract (about 830 acres) less than a mile away that offers just as good of habitat. Lets just hope it stays that way.

Our old lease last season....









Here is what it looks like as of today. This time next year, it will be planted in some kind of row crop.





Our new place.


Adam

Adam:
Thank you for the great pictures. Habitat is the bottom line for
dedicated quail hunters.

Wouldn't it be great if gun organizations directed at least 2% of
revenues to habitat preservation?

I suppose you need a sort of 'Quails Unlimited' similar to the one that protects duck habitat. Add to the habitat problem that of predators and it could spell bad news for them. Perhaps a boycott on peanuts. Personally I don't think I could eat peanut butter without bringing it straight back anyway! Lagopus.....

Funny how quail did just fine before people started worrying about managing their habitat.

Great pictures, Adam. Thanks for posting them. I hope the new lease works out for you. We are headed down to the Albany area in a month - I am not thinking about much else right now.



They may not have been worrying about it but they weren't destroying it either.

Lagopus
There is indeed a Quails Unlimited org. The local chapters do some level of habitat maintenance.

On the peanut butter, try giving some to a dog. It's worth a good laugh to watch a dog lick and lick.

It's hard enough to get people interested or stay interested in this sport when you're facing new and sometimes insurmountable obstacles each and every year.

Soon, only the diehards will be left and when they're gone?

Chuck, sorry didn't know that there was a quail unlimited. We don't have them here in Britain as such only as occasional migrants from central Europe. They are protected here as a result.

One system we have here which helps wildlife in general is one where Farmers can go into a conservation scheme where they are financially compensated by the tax payer for land set aside. Usually it is in the form of 30 foot strips around field margins that are left to nature. They can only be mown in late autumn and no pesticides. This provides wildlife corridors throughout the patchwork of fields. Insects benefit and as result so do gamebird chicks. I currently look after a 3 1/2 mile stretch of river through a shooting estate. I manage the river banks in the same sort of way mainly through fencing to keep livestock off and the tennant farmers on the estate are in on the scheme. the result is that wildlife of all sorts abounds. Lagopus.....

Saw the same thing happen in Missouri from the late 50's/early 60's through the late 70's/early 80's. Fescue and mechanizzed farming, fencerow to fencerow crop fields....or no fencerows....small drainages cleaned to their banks. Not that multiflora rose is a good thing, it isn't, but it did provide habitat, food and escape from predators. For the most part I'm glad a lot of it is gone but along with it went a lot of habitat. Nothing is static, everything is dynamic.

In So Cal and AZ, the farmers are now laser-leveling their fields right out to the roads or ditch edges to get maximum yield from their land. The brushy strips and stands of eucalyptus and salt cedar are rapidly disappearing, and so are the birds. We talked to one AZ farmer in September who farms 1500 acres of assorted crops, and he planted 10 acres of milo just so he would have a place to hunt doves.