Student working to restore mountain quail

POCATELLO, Idaho – An Idaho State University graduate student is trying to re-establish a native mountain quail population in the Bennett Mountains about 70 miles southeast of Boise.

Ron Troy planned to release 52 of the birds, which grow to about 9 inches, this weekend. The birds have been fitted with small transmitters so Troy can track them for up to six months to try to learn why the birds have all but disappeared from the state.

Mountain quail were once present in more than half of Idaho, but in 1984 the state Department of Fish and Game closed the mountain quail hunting season indefinitely.

Biologists say the possible cause for the quail’s decline is the loss of native plants and the arrival of other invaders such as cheat grass. Other possible causes are grazing, timber harvest, drought, fire suppression and converting land for agriculture.

According to the Audubon Society, mountain quail are birds with a long and straight head plume, which differentiates them from the more common California quail that have a shorter head plume that droops forward.

The birds are present from Washington to California, according the Audubon Society, with a population of about 160,000.

The birds being released by Troy, part of his biology master’s thesis project, were trapped in California and Oregon, where populations are stable.