Page 35 - 2020 Jan/Feb Outdoor Oklahoma

ProViDeD

For a time, Keith Knipp and his dogs were
the ’80s, and by 2000, it was really tough, he said. He could only recall one often the guests of Compression Systems
Inc. founder Johnny Warren, who would
year since when bird hunters had a pretty good season. provide flights on his company plane for
“I was thinking they need to do something. A lot of hunters thought we quail hunting trips across the country.
should go back to quail days,” he said, referring to the earlier years he hunt-
ed when the regulations specified that quail could only be taken on certain
days of the week. However, research shows that hunting quail really doesn’t
affect overall populations.
Every veteran quail hunter seems to be sure of what has caused quail
numbers to drop. Some of the common culprits they suspect are parasitic
eyeworms, or greater numbers of predators such as hawks and coyotes.
Knipp said he suspects agricultural chemicals and big changes in habitat
share some of the blame. The days of the smaller farms, when quail thrived,
are now gone in most places. Instead, large-scale corporate farming has
plowed the land from bar ditch to bar ditch, Knipp said, eliminating a lot of
the habitat quail rely on.
As the downward trend in bobwhite numbers continued into the 2010s,
the Wildlife Department began ramping up research to learn more about
the situation. The Department launched several research projects in coop-
eration with the Oklahoma Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
to study various aspects of bobwhite ecology. Also, the Department joined
Operation Idiopathic Decline with the Rolling Plains Quail Research
Ranch, Texas A&M, TAM-Kingsville and Texas Tech to jointly conduct
intensive research on environmental and disease factors Some of the most
cutting-edge quail research in the world continues today at Oklahoma wild-
life management areas such as Packsaddle and Beaver River.
Results from the past decade indicate loss of habitat and unfavorable
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