Washington · UplandCalifornia quail

California (valley) quail are huntable on both sides of Washington's east/west Cascades divide, but WDFW's own quail hunting page states plainly that "the largest populations and best valley quail hunting occur in Eastern Washington," concentrated in the shrub-steppe/agricultural interface of the Columbia Basin and lower valleys. WDFW's 2025 small-game harvest report (county-level, though it combines all quail species -- California, bobwhite, and mountain -- under one "Quail (All Species)" line) shows Eastern Washington counties dominating by an order of magnitude: Grant County led statewide with 9,807 birds (971 hunters), followed by Yakima (6,625), Lincoln (3,448), Okanogan (2,314), Franklin (1,935), Douglas (1,388), Chelan (1,424), Walla Walla (1,656), Whitman (1,564), Benton (1,635), and Spokane (1,307) -- all Columbia Basin / Yakima Valley / Palouse counties. Because California quail is by far the largest contributor to that combined mixed-bag total (bobwhite is a scattered Puget-lowland rarity and mountain quail is West-WA-only per those species' own records), this county pattern is read here as primarily a California quail signal. A smaller but real Western Washington population persists historically along the Puget Trough (San Juans, lower Puget Sound valleys, near Sequim), consistent with WDFW's "huntable numbers on both sides of the Cascades" framing.