It would seem I can’t get completely comfortable asking for hunting permission in western Montana. My success rate for gaining access is frustratingly low. The general consensus from locals is that folks from out of state (mostly blaming Californians) are moving into the area and they usually aren’t too excited about granting hunters free reign behind their freshly hung “No Trespassing” sign. I always prepare myself for getting turned down, with the philosophy that the worst they can do is say “no.” But some of the very best-looking ruffed grouse cover near me is locked-up on private property, so I gather my humility and knock on doors, hat in hand. That was why I was astonished when a property owner was friendly and welcoming when I asked to hunt the particularly “grousey” looking creek bottom near her pasture. She had one requirement:
“Don’t shoot the quail!” she exclaimed. “I like seeing them visit the bird feeders.” The elderly woman, who answered the door with an Audubon society bird book in hand, wagged her finger at me.
“Not a problem,” I promised, knowing full well Montana didn’t have indigenous quail and the Hungarian partridge the locals called “quail” didn’t tend to enjoy the habitat I was hunting.
Quail populations are growing in areas where they have access to more food because of people. (Photo courtesy of Mike Thompson) It didn’t take long to find a few ruffed grouse along the creek. My Gordon setter, Banksy, would point in the thick of things. The birds would flush out of sight, the sound of their wings and the look of disappointment on my dog’s face the only proof they even existed. We followed the creek to a bushy corner with knee-high sage brush cutting out into the field. Banksy went on point.
“What a strange place for a ruff,” I thought, or maybe it was the Huns the homeowner had mistaken for quail, holding tight as they do. I walked up to the dog, expecting the screen door slam of a covey of Hungarian partridge to burst out, when to my surprise, a covey of small grey birds, much smaller than Huns, sharply whirred out of the creek brush.
“Quail!” I shouted to myself. I grew up hunting in eastern Washington. California or valley quail were abundant and could be found from pheasant creek bottoms to grousey forestry, where they eked out an existence near clear cuts and even up at the top of chukar hills. It seemed like those hardy little birds could make a living almost everywhere…but everyone knows there are no quail in Montana. To my dog’s dismay, I didn’t shoot.
We watched these birds scatter off into the sage covered hills, a scene I was so familiar with back in Washington state. I went home a little mystified, but ultimately, I chalked it up to a feral covey that escaped someone’s private aviary. That was until I saw another covey in a completely different area. And then another covey underneath a neighbor’s bird feeder, and then another covey in my yard. It didn’t take much research to find this was no secret invasion. These birds have slowly grown in numbers in western Montana for the last thirty years, and Montana’s Fish, Wildlife, & Parks (FWP) was aware of the situation.
The Arrival of Quail in Montana Talk to ten different people who are familiar with Montana’s quail situation, and you will get at least 11 different answers on their origin story. It would seem as if these birds had been created by the rumor mill itself and sprinkled about the landscape. One person I spoke with said the quail were released by several “bucket biologists” over the years. They were referring to people tampering with the ecosystem by releasing nonnative fish or game with the intent of bolstering future recreational purposes. This answer seemed dubious to me. Generally, the ratio of pen raised birds succeeding in the wild is remarkably low, and a concerted effort of multiple releases would need to be made to allow the birds to become as established and widespread as they have. It would strain credulity that quail could get established in this way if it weren’t for one crucial behavior that I will get to later.
One game warden relayed that Charles Schwab, a local banking billionaire with a game preserve, released a massive number of quail. The birds, however, escaped the preserve’s perimeter only to run amok “Jurassic Park style,” creating the situation we have today. This explanation seems more probable purely from a number’s standpoint.
When researching these birds, a few things stood out as reasons the numbers and range of the valley quail have steadily increased over the last three decades.
Super Parents and Modern Families Valley quail are incredible parents, often raising two to three broods a year. The males take an active role in the family by being the lookout and potential decoy for danger. They also provide extra body warmth for chicks during Montana’s cool summer nights. If they spot a predator, the male will lead it away from the hen and chicks, who are usually sprinting to safety or staying hidden.
Pairs of birds will often allow lone males or females to help raise the chicks, thereby adding more eyes to detect threats, more decoys to lead predators away, and more body warmth to fend off the cold. If a hen dies, the male will continue to care for the chicks. Lone males have also been reported to adopt orphaned chicks and help raise them until they can integrate with another covey. All of this lends to strengthen the numbers. I have witnessed four pairs of birds with four different age groups of chicks all together. With that many eyes and ears, it makes it quite difficult for predators to get the drop on them. No wonder these birds are doing so well. But despite conquering in numbers, there still needs to be an explanation for why they are thriving in a harsh climate they have not evolved to survive, with few natural food sources to see them through.
Hobby farms and areas where people feed the wildlife are good places for quail to thrive. (Photo courtesy of Mike Thompson) Changing Habitats and Nonnative Species The second biggest factor in valley quail thriving and state FWP’s inability to stop their invasion is the modern environment: private landowners, urban sprawl, and land development.
The habitats these birds prefer to live in are small hobby farms and backyards with an abundance of hedges and edges to hide and nest in, the very opposite of modern agriculture that is often attributed to the decline of many gamebird species. Furthermore, many of these private land holdings are too small to hunt. They are often located within city limits or in areas without clear, safe shots. The quail also receive a year-round food source from bird feeders or spilled feed from hobby farmers caring for their livestock. People enjoy seeing these little birds at the feeder and grow attached to their predictable daily visitation (just as my neighbor had). The thought of allowing someone to hunt them is beyond the pale for most. It seems like a perfect storm situation that has allowed these birds to enjoy a strong fecundity and foothold in a foreign landscape.
Montana FWP Action Against Quail According to Rebecca Mowry, Montana FWP biologist, “there are no limits or seasons to hunting quail. Instating a ‘season’ puts limits on hunting them. If they are classified as a nongame, nonnative animal there is literally no restriction on them, and it provides landowners and hunters with maximum flexibility to take as many quail as they want, wherever and whenever they want, with any weapon or trap they want.”
The fact that these birds are mostly on private land, and the western part of Montana has massive swaths of it, makes efforts from FWP to eradicate the valley quail practically impossible. Rebecca goes on to confirm:
“The primary problem is private land where the landowners choose to keep quail populations around and even feed them. We can do nothing about that. We can't make landowners kill them, we can't forcibly remove them from these properties, we can't require landowners to control them. There is very little we can do other than make them as easy as possible to hunt by classifying them as we have. Same with noxious weeds—you can't make landowners do anything about their weeds.”
So, it would seem the state has their hands tied on what can be done about these birds. Management through hunting is extremely limited for reasons discussed above, and it would seem the toothpaste has already left the tube in this situation; however, Rebecca assured me the state has taken a stance against any future releases from “bucket biologist” by listing the valley quail as a prohibited species—meaning people are not allowed to bring more quail into the state. If they do, they can be prosecuted.
But for the ones that are already here...we're pretty limited on what we can do.
Invasive Species versus Introduced Species Montana has several introduced species of upland gamebirds they manage like pheasants , Huns, and chukar . But for valley quail, Montana FWP labels them invasive. For this, I couldn’t get a good answer, just speculation. One biologist offered that state officials realize they made a mistake by introducing species like the brown trout. This introduction had, and continues to have, a negative effect on native trout species, and the state wants to distance itself from the perception that they are going against their current management model by allowing new species to be introduced. I can buy that, but valley quail (like most upland birds) don’t compete with native species like other introduced species do. They take up their own niche.
The Eurasian collard dove are also here to stay. I am constantly puzzled why they don’t have legitimacy as gamebirds if only for the state to make the best of a bad situation. Further puzzlement comes from just a few miles southwest. Sections of Idaho house the same valley quail yet hunting them is prohibited. It would seem there are two competing narratives at play in these neighboring states. However, consideration must be taken in that Idaho valley quail are not exploding in population. They are holding onto small, isolated areas that can’t withstand much, if any, hunting pressure. Why are the Montana quail thriving while the Idaho birds are not? As discussed above, it boils down to private land and urban sprawl. In comparison, Idaho has thin ribbons of private land backed by vast amounts of BLM, making a free birdfeeder buffet and pre-made shelters scarce.
Human influence has helped valley quail to survive harsh winters in Montana. (Photo courtesy of Mike Thompson) The Future of Montana Quail As a passionate upland bird hunter, it’s hard for me to put a negative spin on something like a gamebird’s population thriving. Unfortunately, it is a sign of the times. Over development and changing climate has altered the conditions of Montana to make it more favorable to a species that normally wouldn’t last the winter here. Valley quail are succeeding under the same circumstances that threaten native gamebirds in other parts of the state. As the flow of out-of-state developers come, consume, and convert the wilds of Montana into mini developments, they destroy the very thing they are coming to appreciate.
This development will create more habitat for the valley quail. They will ultimately proliferate further and further and any hope of eradicating them will be long gone. As exciting as it is that they are in Montana, the circumstances are tragic that land development and private property makes hunting them an extremely difficult proposition.
