QUAIL REBOUND, 1: Despite a mostly dry summer, spring 
rains helped quail to rebound ... we have details ahead on 
Passport to Texas ... 

This is Passport to Texas

Quail's short life span makes them vulnerable to 
extended drought. 

07 -- During dry years there's just not enough moisture to hatch 
out eggs, and there aren't enough insects to really feed chicks 
and raise a brood.

Robert Perez is upland game bird program leader at TPW.

16 -- So, they shrink down on the landscape and then they're 
waiting on rain. How long do quail live? Their average 
lifespan's only several months. A better way to look at it is: 
each year's crop -- everything that's produced in the summer -- 
by the following spring, anywhere from 70 to 80% will be gone. 
They will be consumed, basically.

Texas eventually got some rain; the timing of the rainfall 
was as important the rain itself.

26 -- Late winter there was enough moisture to produce the 
forbes: all the plants that quail need to eat during January and 
February; those were available pretty much everywhere, and 
that gets those birds into breeding condition. And then as we 
moved into spring, it continued to rain. There was a flush of 
vegetation, lots of insects, soil moisture. And it kept raining 
intermittently: off and on, off and on, off and on ... all the way up 
to about the second week of July for most of the entire state.

And that created a huge window for quail to breed, which, 
hunters in most areas of the state will notice when the 
season opens at the end of the month, says Perez.

The WSFR Program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti.







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