: Could it be that through our agricultural practices from the 1920's to the 1960's we created a "QUAIL UTOPIA" and that most of us here either lived in it or heard our dads and granddads talking about it so we just assumed it was "always there".
I think that might be the case also... to some extent. I know that's how it was with turkey when I was very young. Lots of people raised them and the wild ones were everywhere (obviously kin the raised ones). When sheep, goats, cows, etc got more valuable and turkey less so, everyone in that part of the world (around my family's ranch) stopped raising them and now the wild turkey is rare again.
I'm not sure why there were so many quail back 'in the day' but it seems possible that it has something to do with using less fertilizer or planting different crops or whatever.
The more I think about quail declining, the complex it all gets!
