Indiana · UplandNorthern bobwhite quail

IDNR's own bobwhite species page states plainly that southeastern and southwestern Indiana provide the best Northern bobwhite populations in the state, naming Greene, Daviess, Knox, and Sullivan counties (southwestern Indiana) as historically holding better habitat and bird numbers, while explicitly ruling out two other regions as poor habitat: south-central Indiana, too heavily wooded, and central Indiana, too intensely farmed, with the northern third of the state always marginal range due to harsh winters and snow accumulation. This population range is legally reflected in a hard regulatory zone: Indiana's bobwhite season is split at Interstate 74, and a 2014 DNR roadside whistle count found steeper declines in the North Zone (-52%) than the South Zone (-30%) that year, consistent with the south holding the stronger population. This is a case where the state's own habitat-investment program does not match the population range: IDNR's 33 Gamebird Habitat Areas managed for quail (along with pheasant and dove) are concentrated entirely in five northwest Indiana counties (Benton, Newton, Jasper, Warren, White), outside both of the species' own named strongholds, worth flagging explicitly so a reader doesn't conflate the state's habitat-program footprint with where the wild population is actually strongest.