In the discussion of survival of released birds, no one mentioned "clipping" the birds beaks. Birds that have had their beaks "clipped" to lessen "losses" in the pens are almost assured to not survive in the wild without feed. This is why preserves that release birds with clipped beaks often use "call pens" to recover surviving released birds. Birds that have not had their beaks clipped have a much better chance of long time survival, similar to wild birds. One pair from a wild covey used to be a common survival rate for wild birds, anyway.
Mike