LGF, I want to take a moment to thank you for your concerns for African wildlife, not only lions. I also don't want to give the impression that I am not. I understand better the issues Africa faces with poaching and poisoning because of your posts.
But, I also wish the definitive answer could be reached as to the total impact that insecticides have had on quail, which was the OT. I have strong opinions, based upon a lifetime of watching quail almost daily, seeing how they interact with modern farming practices, and seeing how the local populations have changed with the changes in row cropping. I have seen quail populations fall, rise, and fall again. Odd thing is, when they fall they never go away completely. There are always quail, just a lower population. Those that are here still feed out into cropland where insecticides are used, nest in the edges of fields that are sprayed from time to time, and raise their chicks there. If the insecticides were as bad on them as some claim, there would be none left, and I would have found dead quail at least once every now and then. I haven't found a dead quail around my fields, that I can recall, in decades, and understand that I'm out there every day, compassing into the thousands of acres.
It really is not important that anyone take my observations as having any value. I'm considered just a "field jockey", and know nothing about quail, according to at least one here. But, I just grow weary of so much of the blame for the bobwhite quail decline being laid at the feet of the American farmer. Farmers grow what the market demands. The market demands it be cheap, relatively speaking. This puts extreme pressures on agriculture to produce it cheaper, so the margins can allow us to stay in business, and make a living.
In closing, I want to cite one example that may be of some interest to those who are truly interested in quail, and not just finding someone to be the scapegoat. There is a very large plantation that adjoins me on the east side of my land. It instituted a quail program in the early 80s, to bring them back. It succeeded. Burning, no insecticides, no release of pen raised birds, supplemental feeding, and creating ideal cover caused the population of wild birds to explode. It reached the point that they were finding and flushing between 6 and 7 covies per hour of having dogs on the ground. This lasted for several years. Walt Rosene, Tall Timbers........ all were amazed and thrilled at Wade Plantation's success. Then, with no changes to their practices, the populations crashed. All the experts were again called in to no avail. No answer has ever been found and today they're lucky to get six points on covies in a whole day. Intensive farming began there after the crash, including the use of all pesticides used by the other row crop farmers in our area. The quail hold their own at this point. No further decline, and................no real answers.
SRH
