2020 AZ Mearns Quail Report (AZ Fish & Game)

[George "Scott" Davis]

Many of us didn't or limited our hunt Mearns Quail hunting in 2020 and focused on our Desert Quail. We must get summer monsoons or 2021 will even be worse.

Harvest was lower than average this season with hunters reporting 506 Mearns quail harvested. The long-term average (40+ years) is 645, but the average over the past 10 years is approximately 898. Some of the increase in the past 10 years could be due to an increased awareness of the wing barrels and hunters reporting, but harvest was definitely lower this year, as the birds/day/hour shows above.

72 hunters turned in envelopes (with names on them) this year, compared to 144 hunters reporting last year; hunters this year collectively hunted 241 days. The long term average is 233 days, but it was interesting to note that ~50 hunters only turned in one envelope, so the bulk of the 241 days were reported by approximately 20 hunters. Total hunting hours reported were 869.5; the long-term average is 985, but the 10-year average is 1,240.3. Again, some of the increase in the past 10 years may be due to increased use of barrels and reported efforts.

The number of birds per day taken, or hours per bird harvested, is more comparable from year to year, as long as we have a good sample size. Hunters reported harvesting 2.1 birds per day this past season. This is slightly below the long-term and 10-year average of 2.8 birds per day. (Last year, the harvest was 2.7 birds per day.) When compared to the total hours of hunting effort, this equates to 0.58 birds/hr. The long-term average is 0.66 birds per hour. This means that in an average year, it would take a hunter 9 hours to bring home 6 birds. By comparison, at 0.58 birds/hour, a hunter would have to put in a little over 10 hours to harvest the same amount of quail.

The most concerning statistic this year was the juvenile:adult ratio. This was 4:10, meaning that only 40 out of 100 Mearns quail harvested were juveniles this past winter, which is the lowest ratio seen since we began collecting harvest information in 1978. (The long-term average is 71/100.) We have seen dips of this magnitude in the past (56% in 1989 and 46% in 1994) and the population has always recovered, but it may be slow-going this time with the historic drought conditions we are experiencing. A lot is riding on this year's monsoon for many species.

[mobirdhunter]

It's nice to see some data instead of anecdotal accounts. Just part of the picture, but, like grouse drumming counts and bobwhite covey counts, it helps in understanding population trends.

I hope you get your rain when it's needed. Here, for our bobwhites, we need the rain to be "normal" during the nesting and brooding seasons. We lost lots of birds during our weeks long snow/ice/cold spell.

Fingers are crossed.

[Chris Robenalt]

Scott, your statistics are my reason for not hunting Mearns this year. Id feel bad harvesting from coveys with such low numbers. On the other hand, our Gambels hunting was the best it's been in years!
Chris, AZ