Northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) COSEWIC status report: chapter 4

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Distribution

Global range

The Northern Bobwhite is found from southeastern Wyoming east to Massachusetts south through eastern Mexico to western Guatemala (Figure 1). Introduced populations can be found on a number of Caribbean islands, including the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Haiti; and in the Puget Sound region of Washington State, Malheur County, Oregon, and possibly western Idaho (Brennan 1999).

Canadian range

In Canada, the bobwhite is native only to southwestern Ontario (Figures 2, 3 and 4). Pen-reared birds have been released in various places in attempts to establish populations in southern British Columbia and Quebec. In Ontario, many pen-reared birds have also been released in an attempt to bolster populations here. But, pen-reared birds have a very high mortality and have not succeeded well. In southwestern Ontario some of the birds are still considered to be wild stock, although in most areas populations have probably been influenced by interbreeding with released birds.

The first Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas (1981-1985) found Northern Bobwhite in 79 atlas squares (10X10 km) over five years (Figure 3).  The second Atlas (2001- September 2003) has found Northern Bobwhite in only 19 squares after 3 years (Figure 4).  The Extent of Occurrence has seemingly not changed, indeed the recent atlas effort has found bobwhite in 12 atlas squares in which they were not found in the 1980s.  Whether these new sites are the result of introduction efforts is unknown, but that is the most probable explanation.  On the other hand, the bobwhite have not been found in 44 atlas squares that they were known to occur in during the 1980s, despite more than 20 hours’ research effort in each of these squares.