From The Editor

If you live in the Southeast and hunt quail, odds are you've noticed a precipitous decline in bird numbers during the past several decades. Stats show that since 1966, bobwhite populations have dropped an average of 2.8 percent per year nationwide, with some areas of the Southeast having seen a loss of more than 8 percent annually since 1980. In

contrast, if you're one of the privileged few with access to a private plantation in the Deep South, you may be enjoying better quail hunting than your grandfather did. On some large tracts in South Georgia and North Florida hunters are moving 45 to 75 coveys of quail per day. And these are wild bobwhites.

Assuming you're like most of us and fated to hunt less-hallowed ground, don't start seething with envy just yet. If you saw Senior Editor Vic Venters' "Quail Hunting's New Good Old Days, Part I" (May/June), you know that it's thanks to some of these plantation owners that there is renewed hope for bobs in the South. At great expense, they have opened their lands and funded landmark studies in progressive quail-management techniques. Now in Part II (p. 54) Vic explains how the results can be applied to properties throughout the region to help restore bobwhite numbers to former levels. This is exciting news, to say the least, and biologists and hunters should make every effort to breach the barriers to implementation.

One person who's thrilled with the prospects is the author himself. Born and raised in North Carolina, Vic comes from a long line of avid quail hunters. "I learned to hunt with my Granddad and father in Onslow County, in the eastern part of the state," Vic said. "My grandfather was a farmer and always kept two or three bird dogs in the backyard. My father recalls in the '40s my Granddad and a friend coming back with 25 or 30 birds after hunting two or three miles of habitat. Back then they didn't hunt the fields but rather the woods, which were burned frequently and kept open for cattle. At the time burning was critical for wild bobwhites, as it is now.

"Growing up in the '70s, I never experienced the golden age of quail hunting. The problems clearly had set in by then, but there were easily enough wild quail to train a dog on and you still could find six to 10 coveys a day. I think 14 coveys were the most we ever found. By the '90s things were getting grim, and lately things have gone from horrible to catastrophic."

A couple of years ago Vic ran into Dr. Bill Palmer, the chief quail biologist at Florida's Tall Timbers Research Station and a colleague of Vic's from his days working at the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. "Bill is one of the nation's most promising quail biologists, an avid hunter and a superb dog trainer," Vic said. "He told me that I would be greatly surprised at the successes biologists and land managers have had restoring wild bobwhites on plantations during the past decade. What I found was even more surprising than I'd hoped for.

"The most eye-opening thing for me is that the Southeast still can offer world-class quail hunting, provided habitat is managed properly. I had long since given up hope that quality quail hunting could ever return to the region. The lesson from Plantation Country is that it can, although admittedly it will not be easy or quick.

"Unfortunately, these successes haven't received the publicity they deserve, and I thought that quail hunters in the South needed to hear the good news. That said, restoring wild quail in the working landscape faces enormous challenges-challenges that won't be overcome without active assistance from concerned sportsmen and conservationists. I hope these articles inform hunters that wild bobwhite restoration is not a lost cause and that their assistance will be crucial in any future recovery."

What can you do? Vic sums it up in two words: "Get involved." If the private plantations' successes are to have any impact on a region-wide basis, it's going to be at the behest of sportsmen advocating new management techniques and working to help implement them. The trouble is that recent attrition among Southern quail hunters has left their voices weakened in terms of influencing policies and practices.

So if you if you have been thinking about retiring from quail hunting, don't do anything rash. Conversely, if you have been considering a trip south, there's never been a better time to show interest in bobwhites and their management. With enough support from those who truly care, Southern quail may just rise again.

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