A Practical and Efficient Helicopter Survey Technique to Estimate Bobwhite Abundance on Texas Rangelands

📖 The Scoop

A key factor in quail management is knowing the abundance of quail on your property. Abundance is important for knowing whether quail are increasing, stable, or declining in a particular area; whether a given management practice is creating more quail; and for managing quail hunting pressure. We provide bobwhite managers with a simple tool that will allow them to obtain a reliable estimate of how many bobwhites are present in a particular pasture or management unit. This simple technique requires observers to collect only 2 basic pieces of information: (1) the number of miles flown during a pasture or management unit survey and (2) the number of bobwhite coveys seen during each survey. These 2 pieces of information are then used to estimate the density of bobwhites (number of bobwhites per acre of pasture). We emphasize that the technique is reliable only if (1) bobwhites are in coveys at the time of the survey, (2) average covey size is about 8-9 bobwhites/covey, and (3) survey protocol is followed. The technique was developed in South Texas and the Rolling Plains and, therefore, it is only generally applicable to these regions. Applying the technique outside the conditions in which it was developed is not valid or recommended.

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