doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 28 bores and Georgia quail

Thanks for sharing.
Funny thing is I have that little auto as my new (2 seasons now) Turkey killing gun. No Bob whites in Ohio since late 70s.

However, took a few with my AYA 28 gauge several years ago (game farm) local. The last wild quail I took was in Ca. Scaled and Valley birds.

I truly enjoy the 28! Hence, my user name.

Enjoy the weekend

Rich

Can you tell us what they said about the minimum acreage to make a difference? TT has been doing quail research a long time and oughta have some good info.

That is the fly in the ointment so to speak. All the small farms around me are gone. There is only planted pines and very little hardwood. The rest in in pasture for cows. The closest fields are a few miles away and they are mostly cotton. Very little corn or small grain is planted anymore. As stated I plant for deer and turkeys every year. Small grains in winter and pearl millet and sorghum in summer. I am going to study up on it some and see what I can do. Might buy some and release them just to see how many would survive. I have neighbors who turkey hunt and practice critter control mainly for turkey egg protection.


JHolland

I have no doubt that the conversion of so much land to pine plantations coincided with the reduction in the quail population. That was made even worse by the changes the timber industry made in site prep. In the 60s and 70s most of the site prep was done with dozers. It caused the loss of some topsoil in places, but the disturbance of the ground resulted in good habitat for quail for several years. Once they switched to using herbicides for site prep, that benefit was lost.

They aren't gonna go back to dozers, so I don't know of anything that can be done to change this.

Steve, good point about pine plantations and dozers. According to the Georgia Forestry Commission, about 28% of the state's forests are pine, but most of the pine is in plantation monoculture. The bulk of the pine is in the lower portion of the state with the upper in other softwoods, pine and hardwoods. Gil

Steve, I agree that the demise of wild quail in the Southeast coincided with the flourishing of monoculture pine plantations, but not sure I agree with the part about herbicide usage for prep work adding to that demise. I have been a participant in this type of site prep before pine planting and know firsthand what the herbicides are that are used to do this site prep. I have even flown in a helicopter that was spraying a "release" for me in pine plantations. Those herbicides target hardwoods, almost exclusively. They do no damage to native grasses and forbs which comprise much of the desirable habitat for wild quail. The sole purpose of this type of spraying is to suppress hardwoods which compete with young pines that are transplanted. I have seen great quail habitats result after herbicide site preps for a pine planting, and the resulting cover for a few years before the pines develop and grow to the point that their canopy suppresses the undergrowth that quail need. Once the pines canopy and sunlight doesn't illuminate and warm the ground underneath the grasses and forbs die out. This is caused, again, by the lack of sunlight, not the herbicides that were used for a site prep.

So many other things happened at roughly the same time as the exponential growth of pine plantations that it's impossible to correctly blame them for the demise of wild quail, which I totally understand you were not implying. I have just heard so many others blame this or that for the demise of wild quail here, and fail to mention the numerous other things that happened that contributed to it. There was/is no silver bullet that caused it. It was a perfect storm of so many factors coming together at a relatively short period in time that the little fellas had no chance of adapting to it all so quickly. Pine plantations, habitat loss, the ceasing of burning, some very harsh insecticides which have been banned for decades now, fire ants, cattle egrets, the resurgence of turkey populations, "clean" farming, eye worms . . . . . these all found their place in the landscape during a period of only a few short years. That the wild bobwhite even survived at all is an amazing testament to its tenacity. I have several coveys of wild bobs on my land and they are cagey, tough little survivors that I tip my hat to.

I had huntable populations of wild birds on my land up through the late 80's. The combination of small fields into one large one for the express purpose of irrigating that farmland with center pivot irrigation systems was one of the biggest factors in the demise, IMHO. I'm 73 years old and have been intimate with the land and its denizens, quail included, for over 60 years. I'm certainly no prophet, but I strongly believe there is no way to return wild quail populations to their former glory. The growing world's population demands the highest and most intense levels of food production. Fire ants aren't going away, cattle egrets and turkeys either, apparently. No till farming has helped to a small degree, but it's a tiny bandaid on a beheading.

Someone once said "You can't go home again". In the case of wild bobs in the Southland I must, sadly, concur. My hat's off to those landowners who have the financial means to restore the habitat, and control so many of the factors that are so crucial to the bob's ability to flourish. Those scenarios are beautiful islands in a sea of barrenness, but they bring much satisfaction to those who choose to pursue it. I am a born optimist, but over a lifetime of observation I have become mostly pessimistic in this arena.

On page 27 of the Tall Timbers book they say “…we suggest a minimum acreage of contiguous habitat for an isolated site to be about 1,500 acres — based on the declining likelihood of quail leaving a property as size increases, and the ability of a population to survive random events.” The book talks a lot about the landscape context that a property sits in. Basically you could have quail on 100 acres if you’re surrounded by large quail plantations. But if your land is isolated you need a minimum of about 1,500 acres.

As for "contiguous habitat", I have two examples of how that works. First, go to google Earth and capture Tallahassee and Thomasville (Ga.) in the same eye view at 62 miles altitude. Note the area between them differs from surrounding areas. There doesn't appear to be much, if any, production agriculture. Using Google's drop down screen (ruler icon) for drawing lines, areas, etc., I chose the polygon. I traced this area roughly and I got about 800,000 acres, an area larger than Rhode Island. Now, zoom into an altitude of 3,000' eye view anywhere in this capture. Note the blocking pattern. This gives hunters and dogs clear lanes to work the "blocks" which is grass and other plants with the ground open enough for birds to escape but still be shielded from overhead predators such as hawks. It also provides for lanes of food trails for the spread of grain which doesn't concentrate birds for ease of predation as did the old school food patches. This area is the famous red hills of Georgia and Florida known for its wild quail plantations. The stewardship by these incredibly wealthy private owners have encouraged and protected an enormous wild quail population due to like minded folks bordering one another. This area doesn't include the territory surrounding Albany, GA, another well known area for wild quail.
The second example of contiguous acreage resulting in successful wild quail recruitment: Within the last 10 years, a late hunting buddy (of substantial means) bought 5,000 acres in the SE coastal plain of Georgia over two hundred miles from the red hills of SW Ga. There were very few wild coveys left in the pines. Tall Timbers was hired and planned what needed to be done. So many pines per acre of land were mandated which required chain saws and bull dozers to clear the land. What trees were left standing is inconsistent with "tree farming" as done in pine plantations. Bugging areas were set aside for the hatched quail to feed when young. At some point wild quail were introduced, but not "stocked" like one would find in hunting preserve densities. My friend died from Covid before the project was complete. His son continued the project and the land was deemed suitable for hunting last season. During spring covey count before the season, over 150 coveys were located. There was so much quail racket at dawn, it was difficult to hear and locate wild turkeys for hunting. The son has established 4-5 courses for hunting. He can hunt each course 4 times per season and still be assured of successful annual recruitment. Wild quail can be returned but at great expense and discipline. Gil

Thanks, that's great info. 1500 acres is actually smaller than I expected, but it's a lot more than what I had to work with.

Stan, that's also great info, and I didn't mean to imply that I thought the herbicide site prep is bad. It's what I've done with my property for all the recent site preps. Most of it was done by helicopter, and I did the edges myself with an ATV sprayer. It's easier on the land than using dozers because it doesn't disturb the topsoil and results in less erosion.

However, I think that the fact that the dozers disturbed the topsoil is the reason that method produced better quail habitat. All sorts of beneficial plants will sprout and grow if you disturb the topsoil in some way. There are some folks who mimic that effect now by disking between the pine rows each year. You don't have to plant anything to get the benefit; just run the disk through it and disturb the soil. I've done it some, but it's hard on my disk and I broke down last year before getting much done.

Gil, you have told me about that section of GA before, and I think it's proof that the primary reason for the demise of our quail is habitat. They can still thrive if the habitat is right.