It seems the same pressures exist on the other side of the world, too.
The season on stubble quail (coturnix pectoralis) opened here on the first Saturday of April. I have been out both weekends since. I am very fortunate to have access to thousands of acres of usually prime habitat held privately both in the family and by friends and neighbours.
The first day out we encountered no fewer than three car loads of other hunters who had all done poorly and were desperate to find a good patch. The weekend after (the one just gone) I was within seconds of taking number plate details and calling police on two car loads of trespassers who were entering one of my own family paddocks until we worked out that they had gained permission from the wife of someone agisting sheep in the paddock. Tenuous permission, but permission none the less, and they had certainly tried to do the right thing.
Landowner's permission (or denial) trumps agister's wife's any day, but therein is a hint at some of the pressures:
The land is being worked harder. Most crops have had the stubbles cut short for their straw, so now provide virtually no cover (they used to be left long for sheep to graze, and then be burned off). The land often has several financially interested stakeholders (owner, lessee, sharefarmer, agister etc), who may or may not be rightly able to grant permission to hunt. Drought has dried up most of the quail friendly dams and soaks, and so with little cover, little water, and little feed, there are few quail in worthwhile numbers, with numbers of now "landless" hunters desperate to get on to a good patch as once good patches are now poor. Our good patch is one of the few left with cover, feed and water, but even then it took us all day to find where the numbers of birds were.
RG

Last edited by cadet; 04/14/08 01:06 AM.