I saw four quail on our lease in gillespie last deer season. That was the first time we had seen quail on this 1200 acres in 4 years!!!!! that is a shame. I also have some good friends in abilene that have had there quail declined from best hunting you could find to almost nothing!

A huge reason the quail population is in decline is the feral hog population.  Their noses are very adept at finding the nests.  Add their impact to the burgeoning predator and rodent populations then you spell disaster for the quail.  Just a few years ago the cats on our property were virtually non-existent.  It is not uncommon to see several cats on our game cameras and many have been seen around our feeders when the quail come to visit.

Lamentations 3:12 - "He hath bent his bow and set me as a mark for the arrow."

I think it has alot to do with fireants.

Shamgartw said something funny. About the time we started getting just a few hogs, I guess they did start declining. In eastland county, everyone has them, or thy are running through. Yea  fireants are a bg problem too, I just cannot fathom the quail almost nonexistent. Now  I was gone for several years while in the service, so I went from having alot of birds to non at all. And to be honest, it reallydoes bother me because I loved to hunt them as a kid and I had birddogs too.  never hear TP&W really mention th decline. Is this why there is no more prairie chicken season  in Texas? Why don we put a hld on the hunting in certain counties, (if we can even do that) and maybe the birds might come back some. I just dont think that hunting pressure has alot to do with it. I mean the bird eat off crops and the native vegetation, theres plenty of food right? Do hogs and ants have that much impact on the ecosystem? 

Actually TPWD has been talking about this for a long while now.

Link from TPWD:

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/landwater/land/habitats/post_oak/upland_game/bobwhite/

Although fireants and hogs are part of the problem, there is a lot more to it mostly changes in habitat conditions.

I am a native West Texan, I read that article and I don't necessarily agree with their theory.  I hunted Quail, Bobs and Blues, over 40 years ago when I was a kid growing up out here.  The pasture land here hasn't changed very much over the past decades from what it was back then and the quail population has sure taken a down turn.  I too remember when quail were thick as flies and there was no problem finding many coveys of 15 or even 50 birds (I could be stretching the 50 a little).  What I have noticed over the past 20 years is an increase in the Coyote, deer, feral hog and turkey populations.  Grazing and Farming techniques have just about stayed the same since I was a kid, and that was a long time ago.  I have heard that mortality rate for quail is about 80% through the winter from natural causes and during the spring that weather was a major factor for the hatch.  This is just my guess but I think weather has as much to do with the population than anything.  I also heard that there was a disease of sorts that killed them.  AND where have all the cotton tail and Jack Rabbits gone.  I have a small place in the country and I have seen one jack rabbit and a couple of cotton tail rabbits.  I have a lot of cat claw thickets that should just be full of quail and rabbits.  AND at one time you could almost any time varmit call gray fox in but they are rather scarce as well.  Things are a changing.  ??

Thanks to Texas Tech we should find out what the problem is in about 5 years.  Here is a link 

http://today.ttu.edu/2009/10/quail-conservation/

Predators and habitat.  Some of the farming / ranching practices have changed.  Range land used to be roller chopped so it gave quail a good cover to dart from one bush to  the next and good flying escape routes in the low brush.

Pastures are now grown up and people tend to feed more deer as their objective.  Turkeys will take a toll on pheasants as they will eat the little chicks, quail are even smaller for some tasty treats.

The tree huggers put an end to the fur market.  When there used to be fur buyers, trying to trap a coon was difficult.  Now there are mini herds of coons putting the raids on feeders every where.  They hit the nest hard.  A native predator that is not kept in check and artificially supported with all the deer feeding.

Now you have the really invasive feral hogs.  They destroy everything.  Fire ants haven't been much help either.  I have witnessed 3 quail nest destroyed by fire ants and those are just the ones I happened to stumble across.  There is no telling what reality is.