Albany Quail Project

The Albany Quail Project was established in 1992 to conduct research and provide practical quail management information to the quail plantations in the Albany, Georgia area. Originally at Auburn University, it became part of the Tall Timbers Game Bird Program on January 1, 2008. From our headquarters on Pineland Plantation in Baker County, we have conducted radio-telemetry studies on wild bobwhites that have included work on supplemental feeding, brood habitat use, hunting success, hardwood clean-up, predation management, wild quail relocation, and many other topics. Recent years have seen the project expand into Alabama and other parts of Georgia. During this time nearly 10,000 wild bobwhites have been radio-tagged and monitored.

Our current work is focused on the continuation of collecting demographic information from our long term study areas, as well as some new initiatives. One of these is an investigation of how supplemental feeding patterns affect survival rates and hunting success on a group of local plantations. We have also begun monitoring cotton rat and hawk populations on these areas in an effort to understand the interaction of these species with quail populations. Rising fertilizer costs have caused many to re-evaluate the management of weed fields so we began a study this spring looking for alternatives to fertilizing of weed fields on sandy land. We are also involved currently in two different wild quail relocation projects and are closely monitoring their success. In addition to our research and monitoring efforts, we remain active locally providing extension information to the over 200,000 acres of wild quail land in the Albany area.