Scaled Quail Management: Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site

INTRODUCTION

Populations of Scaled Quail are declining. Located at the crossroads of the southern Rocky Mountains, Great Plains, and Chihuahuan desert, the 955 km2 Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site has ample potential for Scaled Quail habitat and provides a unique opportunity to protect Scaled Quail. Excessive grazing by livestock has reduced Scaled Quail feeding, nesting, and roosting cover across southeastern Colorado (Dabbert et al. 2020). Grazing use has stopped at PCMS, but private lands and federally managed grasslands border the PCMS, offering exciting opportunities to compare outcomes from management techniques and policy decisions. Reviewing Scaled Quail habitat, life history, and best management practices can help inform military land managers, commanders, and soldiers and improve management outcomes for Scaled Quail while maintaining and possibly improving the effectiveness of military exercises and training use of PCMS. 

SCALED QUAIL REVIEW

Habitat

Coveys of Scaled Quail in Colorado are found on plains and mesas in the state's southeastern quarter. They are found primarily in sand sagebrush grasslands. They also use pinon-juniper woodlands, shrublands, agricultural areas, and disturbed areas high in available forbs. Sand sagebrush, cholla, yucca, wild plum, and skunkbush sumac are important shrub species (Dabbert et al. 2020). 

Cover Needs

Scaled Quail roost on the ground. Studies indicate that 1% of Scaled Quail habitat should provide roosting cover, such as yucca, about 0.4 m in height. Overall, shrub cover should be 35%, mixed with grasses 0.1–0.4 m tall and with 45% ground cover (Dabbert et al. 2020).  

Loafing cover is essential to all upland game birds. Scaled Quail use it to provide shade and protection from avian predation. Cholla, various types of grass, and man-made covers such as wood piles, corrals, and machinery are often used by quail for loafing cover (Dabbert et al. 2020). 

Escape cover is vital for Scaled Quail to avoid predation. Most coveys will fly when flushed; however, Scaled Quail is sometimes perceived to prefer running. Running birds tend to favor mesquite or non-shrub cover. Most birds will flush and fly out of sight. (Dabbert et al. 2020). 

Diet

Scaled Quail feeds on high-energy foods such as seeds of forbs, shrubs, and grain. Seeds and grains are the main fall and winter foods. Insects and herbaceous leaves are consumed on a seasonal basis. The Scaled Quail eats more insects than other quail. Coveys will feed from dawn till 10:00 and from 16:00 until dark. During snowstorms, they will remain in dense thermal cover but resume or begin feeding after the storm clears or during a break (Dabbert et al. 2020). 

Water is not a restricting factor for Scale Quail. They can survive miles from water sources. Although reproduction declines in a drought or the absence of water sources. Scale Quail can obtain most of their water needs from food.  Scaled Quail will use water when available, but man-made sources have little impact on management (Dabbert et al., 2020).  

Nesting

Nesting occurs from May to August. The nests are usually on the ground in dense cover. They use a variety of vegetation, depending on which provides the best visual obstruction. Yucca, sand sagebrush, and thick bunch grasses can provide suitable nest sites. Human disturbance is a significant cause of nest failure. Studies suggest a positive association between visual obstruction at 0.5 to 0.75 m height in areas around the nest and nest success (Dabbert et al., 2020). 

PIÑON CANYON MANEUVER SITE REVIEW

PCMS contains deep canyons, eroded mesas, and extensive intact short grass plains. Grazing use has stopped at PCMS. Grazing affects grasslands differently than military use. Shaw and Diersing observed tracked vehicle impacts on vegetation and found that tracking reduced perennial warm-season grasses, followed by an increase in annual cool-season grasses and annual warm-season forbs (1990).  Due to the nature of tracked vehicle use by the military and the limitations of these vehicles, these effects are generally less distributed across the landscape, unlike grazing cattle, which roam and affect larger areas. Cattle can access far more places than a large tracked vehicle. Although vegetation cover on 40% of the PCMS was significantly reduced by tracked vehicles from 1985 through 1987, bare ground decreased on the 60% of uplands not used for training due to a cessation of grazing and above-average precipitation (Shaw and Diersing 1990).

SCALED QUAIL MANAGEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS AT PCMS

The ability of a site to provide satisfactory food and cover is more important than specific plant species or vegetative compositions (Dabbert et al. 2020). Land managers should focus on maximizing cover and food resources with the vegetation that is currently present unless non-native/invasive species are present. Rutherford and Snyder recommend that shrubs compose 5-15% canopy coverage in managed sites in Colorado (1983). The goal should be a mixture of mid- and late-seral condition areas to support the greatest densities of quail (Dabbert et al. 2020). Maximize or re-establish native bunchgrasses.

Artificial feeding doesn't provide benefit per cost (Campbell 1959). Plow strips to increase food-producing vegetation in areas with shrub resting cover nearby (Snyder 1970). Rollins suggests weeds associated with soil disturbance or the insects attracted to food plots provide the best results (2000). After aeration treatments, Hall found that Scaled Quail selected patches with a larger disc of vulnerability, more bare ground, higher stem densities of woody plants, lower biomass of herbaceous vegetation, less woody cover, less herbaceous cover, lower temperatures, and lower screening cover (1998).

Leave areas with abandoned machinery, building sites, fallen trees, and other debris, such as fence posts and lumber piles, to provide cover and protection from wind, weather, and avian predators (Dabbert et al. 2020).  

Avoid use during nesting season, as human disturbance can cause nest failure (Dabbert et al. 2020). 

Scaled Quail is a “boom and bust” species. Careful monitoring is needed to track these cycles and adjust land use.  Campbell et al. suggest that hunting has little effect on population levels (1973). Harvest quotas may not need to be adjusted during these cycles. Peterson suggests limiting harvest in the late season when population losses can reduce the breeding population (2001).

CLIMATE CHANGE CONSIDERATIONS

Inadequate rainfall may account for reproductive failure in Scaled Quail (Dabbert et al. 2020). The plains and foothills of southeastern Colorado experience periods of drought, which may become more prolonged and intense as climate change warms the region. Colorado has experienced three historic droughts in the past 20 years: 2002, 2012, and 2018. Three of the five driest years on record have occurred since 2002. Higher temperatures will increase the rate of soil moisture loss, further exacerbating intense drought conditions. Wildfire occurrence and severity will increase due to higher temperatures, increased drought intensity, and decreased precipitation (Frankson et al. 2022). 

Literature Cited:

Campbell, H. 1959. Experimental feeding of wild quail in New Mexico. Southwestern Naturalist 4:169-175.

Campbell, H., D. K. Martin, P. E. Ferkovich and B. K. Harris. 1973. Effects of hunting and some other environmental factors on Scaled Quail in New Mexico. Wildlife Monographs 34.

Dabbert, C. B., G. Pleasant, and S. D. Schemnitz. 2020. Scaled Quail (Callipepla squamata), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. <https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.scaqua.01>

Hall, B. W. 1998. Habitat use by sympatric Northern Bobwhite and Scaled Quail in the western Rio Grande Plains. Thesis, Texas A&M University, Kingsville.

Frankson, R., K.E. Kunkel, L.E. Stevens, D.R. Easterling, N.A. Umphlett, C.J. Stiles, R. Schumacher, and P.E. Goble, 2022: Colorado State Climate Summary 2022. NOAA Technical Report NESDIS 150-CO. NOAA/NESDIS, Silver Spring, MD, 5 pp.

Peterson, M. J. 2001. Northern Bobwhite and Scaled Quail abundance and hunting regulation: A Texas example. Journal of Wildlife Management 65 (4):828-837.

Rutherford II, W. and W. D. Snyder. 1983. Guidelines for habitat modification to benefit wildlife. Denver, CO: Colo. Div. Wildlife.

Shaw, R.B. and Diersing, V.E. 1990.Tracked Vehicle Impacts on Vegetation at the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, Colorado. Journal of Environmental Quality, 19: 234-243. <https://doi.org/10.2134/jeq1990.00472425001900020007>.

Snyder, W. D. 1970. Guidelines for improving Scaled Quail habitat. Denver: Colorado Dept. Nat. Resour., Div. Game, Fish, & Parks.