Are quail in Minnesota wild or game raised? Does it matter?

Would it matter to you if there were no more wild chickadees? Just caged chickadees in zoos, no wild ones?

A friend asked a similar question about bobwhite quail. The discussion concerned whether there are wild bobwhites in Minnesota. A more interesting question might be, does it matter?

For the record, members of Quail Forever, a conservation group focused on Houston County in southeastern Minnesota, say yes, there are wild quail. But official bird records for the state list wild bobwhite as extirpated: once here, now gone.

The official records in Minnesota are kept by the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union (MOU). It's a club that supports the common interest of its members, enlisting them to gather data sometimes used by science. Scientific records of birds are important to track population fluctuations and movement. The latter helps us examine climate, for example. Extirpated — the MOU position on the bobwhite — is narrow and scientific.

The Quail Forever members have a connection perhaps more emotional than scientific. I was in Houston County earlier this year for one of their meetings. They see a landscape that would be lessened without quail. Their work on behalf of the birds has value for the idea of wildness as much as actual wild quail. The birds give substance to the idea of wild.

You could argue the quail question is moot. Wild quail and quail raised on a game farm look alike, sound alike and act alike if the birds in pens gain freedom. Quail, like all living creatures, have a specific job, a singular place in the world. Origin doesn't change that.

Quail and chickadees have their assignments, evolving to meet a need, a purpose that keeps them on the landscape. We see them in terms of pleasure. Who watches a chickadee and thinks of it as a cog in the machinery of nature?

Their role in nature is one way chickadees and quail matter. Removing them is like removing one part from your car. It might function perfectly well without whatever was removed, but do that often enough and your car no longer will work.

The have-or-have-not question is important for emotional reasons as well. We need chickadees for the job they do, as obscure as that might be to us. We want chickadees for the enjoyment they provide. Our yards and parks would be less without them, less in sight and sound.

Chickadees are important to us for the idea they represent, even though we see the idea of wildness within a tamed point of view.

Bob Janssen, birder for more than 70 years and a MOU sage, told me recently that wild is nothing but a concept. Humans touch the world in so many ways, he said, that there is no wild any more.

We work to save wild anyway, thereby to save our idea of wildness.

Lifelong birder Jim Williams can be reached at woodduck38@gmail.com. Join his conversation about birds at www.startribune.com/wingnut.