Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 21:33:14 +0000 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: jim brighton Subject: quail decline Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed With all the talk of the waning bobwhite population on Osprey I thought I'd throw in an interesting bit that I was told a couple weeks ago. I was talking with a friend of mine who has been hunting the shore for the past 40 years and I mentioned the decline of Bobwhites and asked if he thought hunting Bobwhites should be banned. His answer was very interesting. He agreed that the quail population on the shore has probably been overhunted but he said the major decline of the species is due to the explosion of Wild Turkey in the area. This shocked me. Having grown up and lived most of my life in Dorchester Co. I have rejoiced over seeing Turkey's in the fields that weren't there 10 years ago. My friend says that there have been studies done in Texas to support his statements. Now, the land where I grew up and where my family still lives is quite large with varying habitats and there has been NO HUNTING on the land since the 1800's. There were always large coveys of quail taking off when ever you walked the fields and hedges. Out of the many covey's (we are talking in the 20's) that used to exist on the farm I think we are down to less than 5, but Turkey's have become extremely common to the point of eating in my parents front yard. An educated guess from my father estimates the Turkey population on the farm to be around 150 birds. I had never seen a Turkey on the shore until about seven years ago. The population has exploded as I'm sure everyone knows. I couldn't find any evidence of this study in Texas that my friend told me about. I hold this man's reputation as an outdoorsman and honorable person very well. I do not think his statements were fabrications. If anyone has any information on these studies it would be very interesting to hear. Jim Brighton Trappe, MD. jdbrighton3@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================