Louis Dakil thinks the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation should close quail season.
The owner of Dakil Auctioneers in Oklahoma City fears that bobwhite quail are traveling down the same path of the lesser prairie chicken and will be vanishing from the prairie.
“I have been hunting 44 years and I have never seen it this bad,” Dakil said. “We are at a very critical point right now, I think.”
Dakil is not the only quail hunter who has suggested closing the hunting season. I’ve heard from several who share the same sentiment. Many are desperate to save Oklahoma’s quail, whose population has dwindled to an all-time low.
Doug Schoeling, the Wildlife Department’s quail biologist, knows that some hunters believe closing the season is the best thing to do.
“I had a person ask me that same question last week,” Schoeling said. “‘Why don’t we close quail season?’”
His answer?
“What I tell people is there are a lot of parts of Oklahoma that don’t get quail hunted at all, and the quail population in those areas is not going up either,” Schoeling said. “Closing the season down doesn’t mean the population is going to suddenly increase.”
Schoeling said some hunters have suggested that the Wildlife Department should shorten the season and return to the days of hunting on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.