Montezuma quail (Mearn's quail)

Governed by AZGFD's combined Quail Outlook press release (Gambel's, scaled, California, and Mearns's/Montezuma quail together, built on spring desert-quail roadside call-count surveys plus a Mearns's monsoon-condition assessment), published each year within days of the mid-October season opener (Oct 11 2023, Oct 15 2024, Oct 17 2025). Not yet published as of 2026-08-19; azgfd.com continued to return HTTP 403 to direct fetch on a fresh check this pass (same block the Tier A registry hit on 2026-08-18), so status is tracked via the expected annual timing rather than a direct page read. Expected mid-October 2026, alongside the season opener.

Governing source is NMDGF's “Fall Roadside Survey” (combined scaled/Gambel's/bobwhite/Montezuma quail), described by NMDGF's own Turkey and Upland Game Biologist Casey Cardinal as being in “preliminary stages of implementation” as of 2022 reporting -- whether it has since matured into a regularly published index remains genuinely unconfirmed, not a confirmed absence. Stale-attribution catch this pass: a WebSearch result surfaced a Cardinal quote describing quail as having “rebounded extremely well” with “outstanding production,” read with no year label attached; direct-fetching the source article (wildlife.dgf.nm.gov, “Southeast New Mexico is your best bet for quail”) confirmed it is dated November 23, 2016, describing the 2016-17 season -- not a 2026 finding. No genuine 2026 NMDGF quail forecast (survey or narrative) was found. 2026 statewide drought conditions (D2 Severe Drought by late April, earliest snowmelt on record) point toward a weaker year by the same precipitation-driven logic used in Cardinal's prior commentary, but that is inference, not a published 2026 finding -- noted for color, not treated as a rating.