Hunters have a right to have a preferred species and to attempt appropriate land management to enhance its presence. But a case in Georgia in which fake quail eggs were illegally poisoned to eliminate predators of quail sounds like a serious breach of environmental ethics. Among the many problems with such a statement is that predation is assumed to be the cause of the problem, a currently unestablished inference. Think of the directions this kind of thinking could take us. Such analogies are not far-fetched.
Some people enjoy butterflies and fishing as much as other people enjoy quail.
We all have our favorite animals, and none of us should be exempt from following the rules we have for keeping all our native species. A recent study conducted in Florida used video cameras set up at quail nests to determine what predators ate the eggs. Rat snakes were found to be major egg predators. Rat snakes have always eaten bird eggs. Rat snakes and quail shared the same habitats long before people hunted in North America.