Page 61 - South Mississippi Living - December, 2020

Quail season opened November 26 and runs through March 6, 2021, with a limit of eight per day, but sportsmen might be hard pressed to nd them. Just a few decades ago, South Mississippi o ered bird hunters some of the best bobwhite quail hunting in the nation, but that changed.
“Quail populations have been declining for several decades in Mississippi and elsewhere across the South,” lamented Rick Hamrick, a Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries & Parks biologist. “In the southern part of the state, quail numbers might be a little bit better, but the population remains low.”
Over the years, quail lost signi cant habitat and their numbers plummeted. They like grassy elds pockmarked by woody thickets and longleaf pine savannas.
“Quail are dependent upon three essential plant communities,” explained Dr. Wes Burger, a noted quail expert and professor at Mississippi State University. “They need annual weeds with a lot of bare ground and broadleaf canopies for brood rearing and foraging. They also need perennial grasslands dominated by native bunch grasses to provide excellent nesting cover and scrubby habitat about six to
10 feet high to protect them from predators.”
In addition, quail face burgeoning predator populations because so few people trap furbearers like foxes and bobcats now compared to years ago. Besides furbearers, federally protected hawks and other raptors prey heavily upon quail. Even animals not considered traditional predators, such as skunks, raccoons, opossums, dogs, armadillos, feral hogs, snakes, re ants, crows and even deer eat quail or their eggs.
With good habitat, though, enough quail survive to rebuild populations. Highly proli c, a female quail might lay 12 to 15 eggs per nesting and could lay three or four clutches from
late spring through early October. To improve quail habitat, many land managers selectively cut trees
to thin the canopy and promote undergrowth. Fire can also clear out undesirable brush, eliminate ground debris and stimulate new plant growth by allowing more sunlight to hit the dirt. Many landowners quail burn a portion of their acreage each year.
“We do a little more burning in the southern part of Mississippi, so that area has been a bit more favorable to quail,” Hamrick advised. “Grasses and weedy ground cover come back quickly after a burn to freshen up the area. We started doing prescribed burning and timber
management
on some state management
areas like Marion County Wildlife Management Area. It’s probably one
of the better public areas in the state to potentially nd wild quail.”
Consisting mainly
of longleaf pine
forests, Marion
County WMA
covers 7,292 acres
near Columbia.
The state also
began doing some improvements on Leaf River WMA and elsewhere.
In the Desoto National Forest, Leaf River spreads across 41,350 acres near Wiggins. Sportsmen can also hunt non-WMAs in the forest, which covers 518,587 acres near
Hattiesburg.
In the absence of wild quail,
many sportsmen head to private commercial shooting preserves
that periodically release pen-raised birds throughout the season. The preserve season lasts much longer than the wild bird season. With almost guaranteed action, preserves make excellent places to take young or novice sportsmen to brush up on their shooting skills.
Landowners can contact state biologists to obtain technical assistance on how to improve the habitat on their lands to bene t quail and other species. See www. mdwfp.com/apps/contact-us for contact information.
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