I can recall putting up some coveys of quail when I was pretty young, but they are nothing but a memory these days in virtually all of Pennsylvania. I never got to shoot any, and never tasted one. Considering the great difficulty of re-establishing ringneck pheasants and the continuing decline of grouse and turkey numbers, I don't hold out much hope of hunting them in this state in my lifetime... unless I stoop to paying to shoot pen raised birds.

https://www.pgc.pa.gov/Wildlife/WildlifeSpecies/Pages/Northern-Bobwhite-Quail.aspx

My area is still largely agricultural and rural, and the farms range from modern, to abandoned, to Amish Dutch, where draft horses are still used to till the soil, and fence rows and other cover is still abundant. Grass fires still happen with regularity when we have dry weather in the spring or fall. I know I have lamented the crash of our ringneck pheasant population, and blamed much of that on the Game Commissions' mis-Management decision to permit shooting hens. But the one other big change that I feel has contributed to the crash of wild game bird populations is the protection of hawks and other raptors, and the introduction of the Eastern Coyote. I've seen most of the blame placed on clean farming, herbicides, and habitat loss. But it is obviously a combination of factors, and the Game Biologists seem very reluctant to even mention the role they themselves played by protecting these predators as if they were on the verge of extinction.

After I Brush Hog my field, I'll often have up to a dozen or more hawks circling overhead to hunt prey in the cut weeds. And it seems like just about every power line has a Red-Tailed Hawk perched on it. I don't think it would hurt the present game bird situation to thin the herd of predators, including feral cats. When I shot two coyote pups in my driveway in the spring, my only regret was that I wasn't able to cycle the bolt on my .22 rifle fast enough to put a bullet in a couple more before they got into the weeds.