The quail hunt in Texas opens this weekend, even with a drop in bird numbers

Quail hunting season kicks off Saturday and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is predicting an uncertain hunt this year due to drought conditions.

Texas is home to four quail species: the northern bobwhite, scaled quail, Gambel’s quail and Montezuma quail. On average, about 45,000 hunters harvest around 12-13 birds a person during quail season, according to TPWD.

TPWD released its annual quail survey last week, which takes stock of the bird population ahead of the hunting season, that lasts until Feb. 26, 2023. Quail populations have ebbed and flowed over the years, but this year’s bevies might be thinner because of the Texas drought, said John McLaughlin, TPWD upland game bird program leader.

“I think what folks are gonna see this year is just a continuation of the last couple of years of below average abundance and that’s just a reflection of the consistent drought period we’ve been in the last couple of years,” he said.

Drought matters in quail hunting

Annual rainfall is critical to the growth of grasses and herbaceous cover for quail and their habitats, McLaughlin said.

Grass and herbaceous cover that is grown in the spring and summer of the previous year turns into brown bunch grass that quails like to nest in, McLaughlin said. The vegetation, which includes flowering plants, also provide protection against predators, and as a source of food from plant seeds and berries.

When there are drought conditions and limited rainfall, it stresses the environment, and by extension, the quail population, McLaughlin said.

“It just makes life difficult, especially for a species [with] the average lifespan of less than a year,” he said. “They really require that heavy push on annual reproduction to keep populations going.”

Nearly 100 biologists are sent out to cover more 3,300 miles of Texas land in August every year for the annual quail survey, McLaughlin said. The state is split into different regions and biologists follow routes that have been used since the late 1970s to survey the quail population.

Using the surveys and data from partner conservation groups and biologists, TPWD is able to forecast the quail season and hunting opportunities.

Since the TPWD conducted its annual survey in August, there has been more rainfall across Texas in September and October, which could lead to an increase in late-nesting for the birds, McLaughlin said. However, it will take years of consistent rainfall for the population to fully recover.

Where to find quail in Texas

Statewide quail populations are down from what they were back in the 1950s and 1970s, and have been on a continual decline for the last 100 years, McLaughlin said. More recently over the last 10 years, there have been two significant drought periods that have affected quail population.

The drought of 2008 and 2009 tore into already declining quail habitat all the way through 2013, McLaughlin said. Spring and summer rains the following two seasons helped the population to rebound.

Generally, from around 2013 to 2017, people could drive down any country road and bump into a bevy of quails every couple 100 yards, McLaughlin said.

That period seemed like a time of plenty. The past five years has been more of the bust side of the boom and bust cycle, McLaughlin said, “that really epitomized a period of loss” because of the drought.

“What we’ve seen now is going back into a bust cycle and we’ve been at about five years of really below average abundance for quail across the state,” he added.

But even with the decline in the bird population, there are few bright spots in regions that are expected to fair better this hunting season.

The Trans-Peco region which is west Texas around El Paso saw a large jump in scaled quail observed per route at 13.06 compared to just 4.33 in 2021. The South Texas Plains region near the border around Nueces and Hidalgo counties saw a bump in bobwhite quail observed per route this year at 5.26 compared to 3.1 in 2021.

“So in terms of opportunity, south Texas for bobwhites and west Texas for scaled quail really seems like that will provide people the most opportunity,” McLaughlin said.

The hunt is on

Hunting does not impact the bird population as much as many might think, according to McLaughlin.

For example, over 2020 and 2021 there were about 32,000 hunters harvesting roughly 375,000 quail. he said. That might seem like a large number on paper, but that’s not taking into context the millions of acres of habitat across Texas.

So, even while quail population estimates are down this year, the TPWD did not consider delaying or canceling the upcoming hunting season.

The primary change in quail population is driven by the quantity and quality of habitat over the long term, McLaughlin said.

“Primarily we’re looking at quail population, habitats, weather conditions, there’s really just not a lot of evidence to suggest that higher harvest in regulated hunting is impacting populations at a regional or statewide scale,” he said. “The primary drivers of quail population, they’re not hunters.”