Peter, is there an equivalent ID test for quail shooters?
I was surprised to learn last year that there is still a (Stubble) Quail season in Victoria. And I was stunned to read a Victorian government report which said that in the last quail shooting season they estimate that 678,000 quail were killed. I wouldn’t have believed there were this many quail in the entire state but the report claims fairly rigorous methods based on surveys of what hunters have said they shot. (And extrapolated out, taking into account all the licence holders who said they didn’t go shooting.)
What concerns me most, is how the hell do these quail shooters identify their prey? I know even after thirty years’ birding I struggle to identify a quail as it whirrs up from below my feet. In that split second that a bird bursts from cover I still regularly momentarily mistake a pipit, skylark or songlark for a quail, let alone nailing an ID of which quail (button-quail or Plains Wanderer) it is.
Is there any ID test for quail shooters, and if so, do they get the extraordinary luxury of 20 seconds to make their choice as we have learnt prospective duck hunters have in their ID tests? In my experience, most quail encounters are over in about 5 seconds or less.
I wonder how many of the estimated 678,000 birds killed were actually Stubble Quail? How many Little Button-quail, Red-chested Button-quail or Plains Wanderer? We know that Plains Wanderer still exist near Melbourne as one was “brought in” by a hunting dog a couple of years ago. How many others got blasted that we never hear about, particularly as the majority of quail hunting takes place on private land, away fom prying eyes.
Sean
