Anyone know what really Happened to Missouri Birds (Quail)?

[Babe Winkleworm]

Here is my perspective. I am managing my property for upland birds, pheasant but more specifically hopefully someday...quail(again). I am not a bird hunter per say but I do like to deer hunt. If I manage for birds deer are a welcome by product. Some of the things I have done. I have killed out all my cool season grasses and promote forbs. I am introducing fire to my landscape. There is a direct correlation between cattle and quail so I now have them to create the disturbance on the ground.
There are two main reasons loss of habitat but also spraying. You can argue all you want about if glysophate (round up) is good or bad. But when you kill one thing several others are affected. One of the main forages for poults are insects...if you spray to kill pests then you are going to kill the critters that feed on them. Same with weeds.
I also believe neonix seed treatment is killing alot of birds in agricultural areas.

[Roddy]

A study done on two 640 acre tracts in Georgia or Mississippi I forget which to help determine where the quail population wasn’t recovering. Neither tract was hunted, but on one tract they removed all the raccoons they could. After two years the tract where the raccoons had been removed had a growing population of quail while the integer tract had no change in population. When I look back, yes we lost habitat, but is it a coincidence that the populations started declining about the time that PETA knocked the bottom out of fur prices and people quit killing raccoons.

[Z520C]

World famous turkey hunter told me one time that fire ants where very detrimental to quail and even turkeys at times.

[Roddy]

World famous turkey hunter told me one time that fire ants where very detrimental to quail and even turkeys at times.

Maybe, but not in Ky or other more northern states.

[MacIntosh]

We have shifted habitat and critters around so much in so many ways, it’s no surprise that some predators or other animals, whether it’s raccoons or fire ants, would have been more or less benign at a population-level in the past, but have been better-able to adapt in new conditions and are now putting the hurt on quail and not allowing populations to grow.