Cycles

I was updating my season information and i noticed there had been changes in the season dates for game that i am interested in. Dove season has been extended to 75 days but Quail and Pheasant (Gun ) has been shortened and in the case of Quail the season is 50% down on the previous year.

I came across a number of reports that had some very interesting reading. Quail in Texas and Oklahoma seem to go through a cycle of a 5year hi/low. 2005 was a very productive year for quail and if my understanding is right we should be and the emphasis on the should be on another high... but we are not , we are in a declining population.

One of the reasons put forth is the change in agricultural policy and a change in hunting behaviour. More and more pasture is being given over to the growth of none state native grasses for hay production. Nearly all fields in Bryan county have hay bails on 2-3 times a year, the farmer gets anywhere from $50-$100 depending on that year prices, a small pasture of 10 acres can produce 100 bails in a year, that's allot of money for practically doing nothing.

One of the other reasons is, quail hunting appears to be down, this is partly due to the fall in birds but also the fall out of favour in Quail hunting with hunters. Quail hunting in terms of trophy bucks is not as glamorous.

Pheasant populations are falling for the same reasons, lack of habitat and lack of interest from hunters.

These reports ( spanning 25 years of data) also conflict with the anti-hunting lobby in that here is direct proof about how hunting regulates game numbers and the opposite effect of why we shouldn't hunt occurs. Numbers go down ( and not up) when game is not hunted.

I was also reading another report on Quill that also found that leaving quail coveys alone for the winter resulted in a higher loss of birds per covey (50%) than a covey that had been harvested. In other words the ones that where harvested would have perished due to the winter anyway so the harvesting of quail didn't really effect the natural populations of the covey.

I spoke to a few friends that own large pastures and have small to medium sized properties about why thy didn't allow the stocking of quail on there property and the overall reason was because they would then have to allow public access to there property , something they were not to happy about.

The solutions are never simple but one thing that has to change is the agricultural policy and habitat for these two game species in order to start bringing these populations back