I have no problems with what a farmer is forced to do to make a living. I own three farms that I rent out. The modern farm is all about efficiency and when you have several million dollars of equipment and large outlay of money or credit you have to farm like they do today. To do otherwise would lead to failure which is in nobodies interest. And on my best day Bob was never in danger of me shooting him to near extinction hereabouts.
Farming today is so dependent on pesticides and insecticide, mono crops or three total crops a year on a farm that edge cover and insects for young birds are gone. No home, no dinner equals no birds. While farm land is no longer home to Bob he can be found else where if you manage him well.
We do manage to get decent numbers of quail in cut over timber for three to four years, but see no long term increase unless you cut timber in rotation, which my timber land is too small to do. But a few coveys have been kept going for over a dozen years in cut over / replanted timber.
I save these birds for a young hunter who has his first dog and as seed for hope. The kid follows a strict agreement to harvest birds until the covey hits six birds and then stops hunting them for the year. He can use them to train his dog but six is the number we have found that will let that covey recover and breed next year. Six leaves a few for natural predators and with luck a pair or two to breed. So in this way he can have his own memories of the good old days.
He is the second young hunter to be allowed to manage the quail population on the farms. Some years one or more farm has nothing to manage. And he knows those woods like the back of his hand and worries about 'his' birds like a true sportsman does. I just wish he would use a nice double. He calls my interest in doubles "odd" which is a reflection of something his mother might think about me. But that is a another story or perhaps he/she is right.
