Page 33 - 2020 Jan/Feb Outdoor Oklahoma

once thrived in
Passenger pigeons the United States.
Millions upon millions darkened the sky during their nomadic migrations
across the eastern and central United States in the early 1800s. But only a
century later, the passenger pigeon was extinct.
The sad story resonates with Logan County resident Keith Knipp, 73, “There were
not only as the lamentable loss of a species because of irresponsible human so many birds,
activities, but because Knipp can see similarities today with another bird
species: the northern bobwhite. nobody could have
An avid quail hunter since the mid-1950s, Knipp has personally experienced
the highs and the lows of this upland game bird’s existence in Oklahoma. foreseen then that
“I don’t think we’ll ever see it again like it used to be,” he said of the quail were going to
bobwhite’s populations in Oklahoma and in its traditional range across the
eastern and southeastern United States. go through these
Knipp recalls hunting birds in the late ’50s and early ’60s. up and down cycles
“There were so many birds. The hunting was unbelievable,” he said.
“There were so many birds, nobody could have foreseen then that quail like they’ve done.”
were going to go through these up
and down cycles like they’ve done. biLL horn
“It’s kind of like what I picture
the passenger pigeon must have
been like back then.”

The Hunting Lifestyle
Knipp was born in 1946 and
was raised in southwest Oklahoma
City. He thinks he must have been
8 or 9 when he first began shooting
with shotguns.
“Back then, everyone hunted and
fished. We’d go to the crawdad hole
and catch crawdads. We were poor
but just didn’t realize it.”
So hunting and fishing was
more than just sport. It put food
on the table.
“A kid down the street … was a
couple of years older than me. And
The bobwhite’s legacy in Oklahoma is
we’d get together with our shotguns and we’d shoot squirrels, rabbits, quail undeniable, but as wildlife managers
have noted in the past several decades,
if we were lucky enough to get them. And we killed one goose in eight or this gamebird’s population has seen great
nine years” of hunting together, he recalled with a chuckle. fluctuations based primarily on weather
and habitat conditions.
It was about 1957 when Knipp went on his first serious quail hunting trip.
“When I really started bird hunting was my first trip out to western
Oklahoma. You’d thought you had died and went to heaven, with as many
birds as we saw crossing the roads. You’d be driving down Highway 3, and
the birds would just be getting up, flying in coveys across the road.
The quail hunting was good then. The typical hunt Knipp went on would
have four or five hunters spread out at the edge of the field in a line. They would
walking out in a row and then walk back, flushing coveys along the way.

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