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Biologists Change Approach to Quail Management

Beginning in the Southeast in the late 1990s, state wildlife agencies, which have stewardship responsibility for bobwhites, changed their approach.  Instead of attacking the problem separately, they banded together for the first time to tackle this increasingly serious problem en masse.  The Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ then-named Southeast Quail Study Group published the “Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative” (NBCI) in March 2002.

Recently revised and renamed the “National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative,” the NBCI is a unified strategy executed by state wildlife agencies and other key conservation partners – under the umbrella of the now-named National Bobwhite Technical Committee -- to restore a native American species across its range.  It is a strategy by the states and for the states … and it represents the most extensive interstate cooperation on behalf of a resident game species in the history of wildlife management.

This first-ever regional recovery plan for bobwhites launched a new era and new hope for restoring this cultural icon…and the many wildlife species that share the same home.

Today, the bobwhite is an “indicator species” whose population decline is in direct correlation with the death of American ecosystems – the eastern grasslands, the longleaf and shortleaf pine forests – and the suite of wildlife species that depend on them.

Populations of wild bobwhite quail have plummeted 82% in the past 40 years. Following the bobwhite’s path is a suite of lesser known species and includes even the pollinating insects so critical to agricultural production.

Shared Habitat

Among the wildlife species that share habitat with the bobwhite are:

• Eastern Cottontail
• Gopher Tortoise
• Pine Snake
  
• Bachman’s Sparrow
• Eastern Meadowlark
• Northern Harrier
• Grasshopper Sparrow
• Sedge Wren
• Short-Eared Owl
• Upland Sandpiper
• Henslow’s Sparrow
• Loggerhead Shrike
  
• LeConte’s Sparrow
• Vesper Sparrow
• Prairie Warbler
  
• Dickcissel
• Bobolink
• Indigo Bunting
  
• Painted Bunting
• Blue Grosbeak
• Field Sparrow