Missouri\u27s Quail Hunter Cooperator Survey

Since 1938, Missouri has surveyed northern bobwhite ( Colinus virginianus) hunters to learn of hunter demographics and hunting success. This information is useful for identifying long-term trends in hunting activity and for planning future hunting recreation and regulations. In this paper, I evaluate temporal variation in hunting success within and among hunting seasons. The survey was generated from daily hunting journals of 200 to 600 quail hunters. On a week-by-week basis, cooperators harvest most quail during the first week of the season. Hunting has consistently been concentrated in a handful of days including the first and last 2 days of the season, Saturdays, Sundays, and holiday weekends. The rate at which quail were found decreased with time during the hunting season. Comparing hunters from metropolitan and rural areas, hunting activity and success have changed with time. During 1938 to 1944, city hunters spent less time in the field and found and bagged quail at a lower rate than did rural hunters. During the 1980\u27s, however, city hunters spent more time in the field and found and bagged quail at a rate almost equal to that of rural hunters. I discuss implications of various trends in hunting activity for management of hunting recreation

Emerging Trends in Midwest Bobwhite Culture

In the Southeastern United States, Breeding Bird Surveys that bobwhite populations have been declining at 3.8%/year over the last 3 decades. Declines have been attributed the cumulative effects of large-scale deterioration of quail habitat quality associated with advanced succession, intensive monoculture farming, and intensive timber management. Additional factors such as changing role of predation, expansion of red imported fire ants, and metapopulation processes may exacerbate declines. Declining bobwhite hunter participation, changing public values, and realignment of conservation emphases have diminished the emphasis on bobwhite management nationally. However, within the Southeast 3 states, Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina, have developed targeted private lands initiatives to enhance local and regional bobwhite habitats and populations. Additional opportunities exist for enhancing regional populations through broad avian conservation initiatives such as the North American Bird Conservation Initiative and Partners in Flight. Potential benefits from these regional efforts will be accrued only if greater value and emphases are placed on conservation of early successional habitats. As anthropogenic activities and natural successional processes influence regional usable space for bobwhite in the Southeast, established paradigms regarding relationships among predation, harvest, habitat management, and population dynamics may no longer be germane. Restoration of local and regional bobwhite populations will require a much greater understanding of bobwhite population processes at a mechanistic level across local and regional spatial scales

Fall Quail Densities on Public Lands in Missouri: A Decade of Monitoring

Northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) fall population density has been determined annually since 2005 on 19 public land areas managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC). These demonstration areas, known as Quail Emphasis Areas (QEAs), were created as part of the MDC Strategic Guidance for Northern Bobwhite Recovery: 2003-2013. Management of QEA bobwhite populations, habitat and hunting has been evaluated periodically at the area, regional and statewide scale, and the program has been perpetuated in an updated 2014-2024 Strategic Guidance. QEAs were selected to represent MDC administrative regions and are highly variable in many aspects, e.g., size range from 298 to 3,642 hectares. QEAs are managed adaptively, maximizing usable space and early-successional plant communities, with bobwhite population density and distribution, and hunting, as response variables. Fall bobwhite calling coveys are measured with point transect surveys, distributed to cover nearly 100% of each QE, coveys are flushed to estimate covey size, and density is calculated with the Distance program. Observers, mostly permanent staff, initially received rigorous training, and periodic updates. Across QEAs and years, there has been a high amount of variability in weather and habitat management, and subsequently, population responses have been equally variable, as revealed by preliminary analysis for 2005-2010: (1) Number of covey observations on a QEA in a single year ranged from 0 to 178; (2) Encounter rate (i.e., number of coveys/effort) ranged from 0- 5.95; (3) Density in areas where coveys were detected ranged from 0.003 coveys/ha to 0.103 coveys/ha (covey densities not adjusted for calling rate), and from 0.006 to 0.122 coveys/ha (covey densities adjusted for Missouri-specific calling rate); and (4) Some QEAs showed consistent declines in density from 2005-2010, whereas others increased. We discuss lessons learned from this long-term, statewide effort to demonstrate effective quail management based on quantification of population response to prescribed management