How is the popularity of hunting faring in Texas?
Quail on the trail near Rotan a healthy sign for the season
Quail are called by Mitchell Riggs and Dan Foley at Rotans Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation. This season’s bird counts have been promising.
- Quail are considered an indicator species for healthy rangelands and grasslands.
- Grasslands, the habitat for quail, are rapidly disappearing.
- Support for hunting impacts conservation funding derived from license and supply sales.
This is the second part of a two-part series on the state of quail in the Rolling Plains which encompasses much of the Big Country. The first part can be found online and in Sunday’s print edition of the newspaper.
Why should you care about quail? For the same reasons coal miners worry about their canaries.
Quail season in the area begins Nov. 1 and runs until Feb. 28, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. After the first three weeks or so, it also runs alongside with deer season.
According to Mitchell Riggs, the operations manager at the Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation near Rotan, quail season usually begins in earnest after the first freeze kills most wildland vegetation.
“It makes for a sharper scent profile for the dogs to find (the birds) after the plants die,” Riggs said.
‘A dying activity’
But maybe you aren’t a hunter. In fact, support for hunting has been seeing a slow decline over the last decade. A story published May 30 in Bowhunter Magazine reported on a 2024 survey that found 76 percent of adult Americans approved of legal hunting, which was down from down 5 points from 81 percent in 2021.
“Hunting in general is a dying activity,” Foley said. “I don’t know the exact numbers, but it’s something in the order of 2-to-4-percent less hunting licenses are purchased each year than the previous year.”
Riggs added the loss of revenue comes not only from fewer licenses but in the purchase of fewer hunting supplies. In Texas, Riggs said those are taxed at 11 percent, and that’s what funds state conservation efforts.
“Not just for Texas Parks and Wildlife, but Colorado, Louisiana, Oklahoma,” Riggs added. “All of their game and fish departments rely almost exclusively on dollars generated from the sale of hunting licenses.”
Quail as canaries
But even setting that aside, caring for quail reaps benefits beyond hunting.
“Quail are an indicator species of a healthy rangeland,” he said. “Meaning that if you have quail, and you see quail, your ecosystems are in great condition. It’s even more imperative now, as we’re starting to lose all of our grasslands.”
He pointed to how the entire Interstate Highway 35 corridor was once tall-grass prairie.
“We only have probably less than 5% of tall-grass prairie remaining in Texas,” he continued. “Grasslands are important even if you’re not interested in quail. Grasslands capture carbon, they store water.
“We all benefit from grasslands.”
And as far as the quail this year? It depends on where you’re at.
“If you rank it from one to 10, we’ve heard reports Aspermont and that area being a 10,” he said. “Here, I’d probably rank it as a six or seven, and it’s going to be very localized.”
Sounds good, but both men keep it in perspective.
“Overall, let’s say we’re at an up year,” Riggs said, and then chuckled. “All it can take is one drought, and all this hard work goes away.”