Good habitat is the most critical component or limiting factor to having high quail populations.
Reproductive success during the nesting and brood rearing season is critical to increasing quail populations, and providing good nesting and brood-rearing habitat can aid tremendously in quail production. Providing good nesting cover can reduce loss of nests to egg-eaters like snakes, raccoons, opossums, and skunks. Adequate brood-rearing and escape cover can reduce losses of chicks and adults to predators like bobcats, hawks, and owls. Fireants are often blamed for the quail population decline. In some parts of the country, where fireant mound densities are much higher than in Mississippi, fireants can impact quail nest success, but in most of the southeast fireants do not significantly impact bobwhite quail populations.