The Western Quail Management Plan (Plan) has been developed under the auspices of the Resident Game Bird Working Group of the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies. The development of the Plan is part of a continuing effort to establish species-specific or species-group-specific conservation strategies to guide resource planning and on-the-ground habitat management initiatives.

The Plan utilizes the North American Bird Conservation Initiative’s bird conservation regions (BCRs) as the geographic assessment unit to ensure consistency with other planning efforts that focus on avian species. BCR boundaries may be viewed at www.nabci-us.org/bcrs.html.

Assessments are provided for the BCRs, which represent the core of western quail’s U.S. range. The primary objectives of the Plan are to provide a rangewide estimate of population and habitat and to assemble current assessments of threats, management recommendations and research needs.

Habitat conditions and population densities were based on available data or the expertise of resource professionals knowledgeable of regional conditions and populations. Because of the absence of a rangewide comparable population estimate, harvest estimates were used to index population size. Also, western quail population size is frequently more dependent upon rainfall patterns than habitat quality or quantity.