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.
Stan, I can't blame you for feeling that way. At the same time, however, American agriculture is clearly "to blame" for reductions in wildlife populations, simply because of the changes that have taken place--mostly beginning in the last half of the last century. Bigger fields. "Cleaner" farming (weed control). I recently drove through Illinois, from north to south (it's a darned LONG state!) and back again. Shared driving duties with my wife. We were driving through farm country, much of it flat as a table top. At one point I asked her how long it had been since we'd seen any fences. I've been watching fencerows disappear in Iowa for a very long time, and it's not at all unusual to see fields with no fences along roads--mainly because more livestock is raised in confinements, which means they aren't wandering around in the fields, which in turn means there's no need for a fence to keep them from wandering out onto the road. But we'd go for miles without ever seeing a fence on farm ground in Illinois. Really struck me. And those "micro-habitats", like fencerows, are important to upland birds like pheasants and quail.
I think Illinois market hunter and famed shotgunner Captain Bogardus may have been one of the first to note the impact of habitat changes on wildlife populations. In a book written not long after the Civil War, Bogardus noted how--as more and more of Illinois' soil was broken for farming--bird hunters were seeing fewer and fewer prairie chickens. But more quail! Agriculture back then--and for a long time--was the bobwhite's friend. (True also of pheasants, after they were introduced.) But certainly not the prairie chicken's friend. Those birds need large expanses of unbroken grasslands.
So we traded prairie chickens for quail, and had great quail populations across the Midwest (if you didn't go too far north) and the South for a long time. But as agriculture became more intensive--partly Washington's fault, because farmers were told to farm fencerow to fencerow, because we were going to feed the world--certain species of wildlife suffered. Game birds like quail and pheasants were losers. So chemicals are only one small part of an overall trend in late 20th century/21st century agriculture. Unless farmers intentionally "farm for wildlife", it's very easy for them to pretty much wipe out wildlife, simply by going about their business.
Unless Washington steps in with something like the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays them NOT to farm fencerow to fencerow. (Assuming there are fencerows still left.) Or unless the farmer is sufficiently interested in wildlife to leave undisturbed pockets of habitat--assuming he can afford to do that and still make a living.
Last edited by L. Brown; 05/10/18 08:01 AM.
