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.
