“One thing that sticks out in my mind more than anything else from a statistics class I once took is that “correlation does not imply causation.” Just because two things happen at the same time does not necessarily mean that one caused the other. In the past 30 years, Missouri’s turkey populations have increased dramatically, while at the same time quail populations have declined. But in that same time period, the price of gasoline has gone up 1,000 percent. Have higher gas prices caused a decline in quail numbers? Of course not. But neither have increased turkey populations. While we can follow the logic that suggests increased turkey numbers could cause reduced quail populations, the evidence for this simply is not there.”
You’ve got to read Missouri wildlife biologist Scott Sudkamp’s latest quail blog posting entitled Turkasaurus rex? HERE.
