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- NJ.com

"When I was 10 years old, I used to hear them as my grandfather and I sat on the front porch on a glider, one of those big old metal porch swings," said Joe Matter, 59, who grew up hunting quail in the Thorofare section of Gloucester County. "Those were the days of hunting with side-by-sides (shotguns) and Woolrich shirts. We also had more than just a few dogs underfoot. It was nothing to kick up 20 to 50 coveys of quail in a day, with 20 to 25 birds in each covey."

Matter, a resident of Gloucester City,  said these days when he walks through the fields he's lucky to kick up one flapping, fluttering covey of a half-dozen quail.

Although the bobwhite faces extinction throughout the eastern and southeastern United States, the state Division of Fish and Wildlife released a report this month concluding, "New Jersey's declines are among the most precipitous recorded."

via www.nj.com