The Texas Quail Index: Evaluating Predictors of Quail Abundance Using Citizen Science

Annual abundance of northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) and scaled quail (Callipepla squamata) fluctuates drastically in Texas, which complicates a quail manager’s ability to forecast quail abundance for the ensuing hunting season. The Texas Quail Index (TQI) was a 5-year citizen-science project that evaluated several indices of quail abundance and habitat parameters as predictors of quail abundance during the ensuing fall. I found that spring cock-call counts explained 41% of the variation in fall covey-call counts for all study sites in year 1–4, and 89% of the variation in year 5. Further investigation revealed that year 5 was a drought year and had a significantly lower percentage of juveniles in the hunter’s bag. These results suggest that during drought years, fall quail abundance is more predictable than during non-drought years and that low breeding success may be the reason. If these data are correct, quail managers should have a better ability to predict the declines of their fall quail abundance in the dry years. The TQI relied on citizen scientists (cooperators) to collect data. Since most (66.1%) cooperators dropped out of the program, and