Maryland · UplandNorthern bobwhite quail

MD DNR's hunting-seasons calendar (footnote 16) carves out a real regulatory closure for this species: quail hunting is closed in Allegany and Garrett Counties and on all DNR-owned/managed land east of the Susquehanna River, open elsewhere. That legal boundary lines up closely with the biological reality: bobwhite quail have declined more than 90% in Maryland since the 1950s, with remaining populations concentrated on the Eastern Shore and in Southern Maryland. The state's own Upland Game Bird Project supervisor is quoted describing even the Eastern Shore's remaining birds as far from thriving. The Allegany/Garrett closure exists because western Maryland's mountain forest is not quail range to begin with (it is ruffed grouse country instead); the DNR-land-east-of-the-Susquehanna closure is a separate conservation restriction layered on top of the species' actual stronghold. DNR's own restoration case study at Nanticoke River WMA (Eastern Shore), where habitat restoration reportedly quadrupled the local quail population, anchors the strongest current-day example.