Predator Control and Quail

Article and photos by DALE ROLLINS, Ph.D.

“A quail’s life is full of tests. Many critters break up their nests, Possums, skunks, raccoons too. It’s enough to make a bobwhite blue.” ~Bobwhite Brigade cadence

IS THERE A PLACE FOR PREDATOR CONTROL IN QUAIL MANAGEMENT?

Ask many quail managers and hunters and they’ll proclaim, “Of course!” Ask a wildlife professional, and they’ll likely counter with an antiphonal echo of “habitat, habitat, habitat.” Ask me and I’ll espouse my Texas Tech Theory of Relativity, “It depends!”

Predation as a selection pressure has shaped most everything we know and love about quail: their anatomy, their behavior and their ecology. We appreciate many of these adaptations such as covey formation and thunderous flushes honed over many generations of coping with predators which endear quail to our hearts. Their cryptic plumage, their crop, which acts like a Ziploc® bag for an eat-and-run lifestyle, and multiple breeding attempts afford a quail with an array of tools to help it stay afloat in a sea of predators.

THE PLAYING FIELD

Indeed, a quail can hold its own in a fair fight, but is today’s playing field level? I argue it is not—in today’s landscape we’re asking a bobwhite to fight with one wing tied behind its back. Currently our quail are mired in a “predator pit,” and it’s beginning to take a toll.

At a statewide quail symposium in 1999, I participated in a point-counterpoint argument on “Is there a Place for Predator Control in Quail Management?” I presented the point argument “Yes” while my colleague Dr. Nova Silvy presented the counterpoint argument “No”. Some of the points I made in that presentation are included herein and likely have become even more challenging for quail in the past 20 years.

Our radio-marked bobwhites at Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch (RPQRR), and at our translocation sites in Erath and Kent counties really felt the brunt of predation this past spring— indeed a veritable “death March.” We sustained losses of 30 or more birds at each site from talon or fang.

I’d like to think that when vegetation begins to green up in mid-March that a quail has survived its annual winter gauntlet. But their trials inevitably continue—and often escalate—as they exercise their spring rituals of dispersal and “bob-whiting” takes place. When nesting season begins about May 1 the challenge of laying a clutch of 15 eggs and incubating them for 23 days without disturbance from various “mesomammals,” snakes and feral hogs becomes a daunting task.

A PERFECT STORM FOR PREDATORS

Here’s the “perfect storm” that has brewed over the past three years for those of us in West Texas: • Drought has reigned (pun intended) for the past three years. Thankfully, many of us received good rains during

May which has laid a foundation of good nesting cover. • Rangeland habitats going into May west of the 98th meridian looked mostly pitiful; if you’ve had any cattle, it was probably too many for the quail’s concerns because it resulted in a lack of nesting cover. When I use the Softball

Habitat Evaluation Technique, I say you should NOT be able to see a softball from pitching distance which is 46 feet away…in many areas of West Texas, you could still see it if it was shot from a Howitzer. This sad scenario extended throughout most of the Rolling Plains and farther westward. Most of the Scaled Quail range missed the May rains and is still mired in drought.

• Seed supplies of western ragweed, a principal seed for bobwhites, were in short supply last November at least at

RPQRR; the more time a quail spends foraging, the more vulnerable it is to predation. • Some areas in the landscape matrix such as RPQRR will have suitable nesting cover, but those areas will also attract various predators. (We believe this is one of our biggest obstacles at our Erath County site). • Predator communities and landscapes have changed over the past 50 years. The increases in some mesomammal (raccoon) populations and feral hogs are inarguable.

Various mechanisms operating on the back forty to promote such increases include 1) demise of the fur market in the mid-1980s, 2) increased supplemental feeding of deer, 3) increasingly fragmented habitats, and 4) a proliferation of farm ponds on the landscape. Raise your hand if you’re guilty of one or more of these. • Documentation of such longitudinal changes in predator communities include A.S. Jackson’s predator control efforts in Wise County in the early 1950s relative to more recent efforts. Jackson removed 574 potential predators of quail from a 3,000-acre study site over a 13-month period.

Of particular note, only 11 raccoons (2 percent of the predators removed) were trapped during his study.

Fifty years later, E. Lyons with Angelo State University removed 21-40 raccoons from two study sites, each 600 acres in size, during only 30-day trapping efforts in adjacent

Parker County during 1999 and 2000.In other words, Lyons removed about three times more raccoons than Jackson did on study sites 20 percent the size of Jackson's sites, and with only 10 percent of the trapping effort.

Also, consider our Erath County Quail Restoration

Initiative site of 2,300 acres. Over a 25-month period (February 2019 – May 1), ranch staff removed 321 raccoons, 118 striped skunks, 42 coyotes and 19 bobcats.

Sobering results for a translocated quail. • Population trends of some quail-threat raptors such as

Cooper’s Hawk, have increased steadily since the 1960s.

Factors responsible for the increase of various avian predators of quail are unknown, but could include the dissipation of organochlorine insecticides, increased law enforcement and educational efforts on raptor conservation.

Accipiters are generally considered the most efficient quail predator, and Stoddard characterized Cooper's Hawks as

“the outstanding natural enemy of the bobwhite.” • Supplemental feeding for deer has increased substantially (incredibly?) over the past 40 years. Nontarget species like raccoons and feral hogs consume much of that feed and likely demonstrate a “flushing effect” or increased ovulation rate and likely increased survival of their offspring.

All of these contribute to quail seeking to escape the

“predator pit” which can suppress their abundance, especially when quail are at low densities. When predator–prey dynamics operate according to the predator pit hypothesis, the short‐term control of predators may allow the prey species to achieve permanently higher densities, even when predator control is subsequently relaxed. In this situation, predator control may be a more cost‐effective conservation solution than habitat management, owing to the shorter time period over which it is required.

SO, WHAT CAN WE DO?

• Adopt an “Integrated Pest Management Approach,” the philosophy used for pest control in crop production, as you contemplate predation management. Accordingly, use indirect control in the form of habitat management as your first line of defense via brush management and rest from grazing. • Identify and protect your most quail-friendly species of brush such as lotebush and hackberry during brush control efforts. “Appreciate” pricklypear as mechanical protection from some nest predators. • Embrace species diversity of vegetation and small mammals as a buffer against predation on quail. • Manipulate stands of common broomweed with seasonal burning. • Ponder whether coyotes act as “beneficials” when they prey on various smaller mesomammals like raccoons and skunks. Coyotes also restrict where raccoons occur across the landscape, especially for females and their kittens. • Implement lethal control alternatives in a targeted fashion.

Monitor trends of mesomammals via camera-trapping, helicopter counts (for coyotes) and weekly roadside counts for raptors. • Monitor “cause-specific mortality” for bobwhites across all seasons. • Implement aerial gunning or corral trapping for feral hogs as needed. • Monitor water sources and feeders with game cameras to provide intelligence as to species presence/abundance (raccoons) then respond in a timely and appropriate fashion. • Implement bobcat trapping with cage-traps baited with a live rooster (special traps like this are available).

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