re: New to TD, was wondering what happenned to all the quail in S Louisiana?

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Ive talked to a soy bean farmer that said he saw a ton of them in a certain river parish this year.

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Tell him you have an internet friend with bird dogs...

I think CRP is helping them. I heard a few this summer and jumped a covey of about 20-30 in the palmetto woods last winter and thought I died when they got up.

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Egrets eat the babies around here (south AL). And they are a protected species. I've seen hundreds of baby quail run from under a brush pile and get eaten by egrets following a farm implement of some sort

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lol what in the world?

Changes in farming and timber management practices, fire ants, habitat loss, and too many unchecked predators. They were very plentiful when the southeastern part of the state had an abundance of pine savannas and open land, but that's a thing of the past. I always saw quail when walking as a kid on my grandfather's land in St. Tammany Parish, and there were plenty of them in Ford's Pasture and undeveloped parts of Pollard Estates when I was young.

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I think CRP is helping them. I heard a few this summer and jumped a covey of about 20-30 in the palmetto woods last winter and thought I died when they got up.

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One of the issues with habitat in Louisiana is the fact that stuff grows too fast and many times land transitions into and out of quail habitat before the birds have had a chance to grow their numbers. Most areas have a covey are two around in pine thickets. Deer hunters see them, but those birds are non-huntable because of the thickness.

Quail are small ground dwellers, they need to walk on dirt, if you can't roll a baseball on the ground without rolling up on vegetation, then the ground vegetation is too thick for quail to use that area.

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Deer hunters see them, but those birds are non-huntable because of the thickness

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every place I am aware of in LA that has multiple coveys, is a very well managed deer club/location and they ain't letting anybody run their bird dogs through there.. also the place where I have seen the most woodcock...(north west of the river parishes....)

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I always hear that changing farm practices are to blame, but quail were here before farming was.


They were here in longleaf pine savannahs. That is what is being reintroduced to many federal lands in the SE US, 600k acres at kisatchie alone, but most of that has not yet been converted and it is a long process...

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It's really starting to bother me, the older I get the more I miss the quail of old.... not the chubby box car released ones...


fires also routinely cleaned out areas... which smokey the bear and current timber practices dramatically limit.

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but it's still pretty rare and only in specific areas that I see them

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this area was keenly managed to say the least....somebody from Bham's spread(i took him on few guided duck hunts years ago here)...

was simply exercising my dogs between runs at a doggie game... and they quickly found some... it was awesome....

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fires also routinely cleaned out areas... which smokey the bear and current timber practices dramatically limit.

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Not so much in Louisiana. Uncle Sam is promoting burning. kisatchie is on a 3-year burn cycle, so about 200k acres a year depending on weather, but they are trying to get some of that down to a two-year cycle. The areas where they can get it down to 2 years, depending on the time of year of the burn, they are seeing move removal of woody plants and less grow back between burns and a big uptick in quail numbers. When I say big, we are talking from next to nothing to a good chance at finding a couple of coveys. Not old day numbers...