Hunting & Heritage  |  07/19/2017

Summer Quail Report: Nebraska


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“In the 2016-17 season, 21,790 quail hunters harvested 112,916 bobwhites during 144,026 days afield,” reports Jeff Lusk, Upland Game Program Manager with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. 

“Overall, our winter was moderate. There were some late cool spells this spring regionally that might have slowed things up” for the hatch, he says. “We have had a couple of heavy rainfall events so far this summer, in parts of the quail range in Nebraska.  These could have impacted local populations.

“But quail habitat should be good,” says Lusk. “There’s been adequate early moisture for good vegetative cover.”
 
“The core of the bobwhite quail range in Nebraska is in the Southeast, and it continues north and west from there, to central Nebraska and, in good years, beyond,” says Lusk.

“For bobwhites, we are participating in the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative’s Coordinated Implementation Plan (CIP),” says Lusk. “As such, we’ve developed a focal area in which we are promoting quail management practices in an effort to increase bobwhite abundance.  The CIP is a 10-year commitment and involves both spring and fall population monitoring, and habitat assessments at points along that 10-year span."

See the other heartland quail reports here: Iowa, Kansas.

Tom Carpenter is Digital Conntent Manager at Quail Forever.

Phot credit: Jared Wiklund, Quail Forever.