It comes as no great revelation to anyone who has followed a pointing dog that bobwhite quail numbers throughout much of their range are low and generally declining. Quail Unlimited chapters are working hard, and have worked hard for many years, supporting conservation projects in their local areas and encouraging more effort toward quail by state and federal wildlife and land management agencies. In recent years, many state wildlife agencies have instituted new programs or expanded programs directed at bobwhite quail. Even with these valiant efforts, however, the habitat problems facing quail and other wildlife that share their habitats can seem insurmountable. Now, however, a significant event in quail conservation has occurred that may just be the turnaround we have been working toward. A number of years ago, in response to declining quail numbers throughout the Southeast, the Southeast Quail Study Group (SEQSG) Technical Committee was formed under the auspices of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (SEAFWA). This group of state, federal and private biologists and managers has worked to identify and support multi-state activities, management and research toward quail.
In October 1998, the SEAFWA Directors determined the time had come for serious action to stem the alarming decline of bobwhites.They instructed the SEQSG Technical Committee to develop a habitat-based northern bobwhite quail recovery plan that could foster large-scale coordinated, collaborative action at the regional level.
The Southeast Quail Study Group Technical Committee assigned Ralph Dimmick to assemble and lead a team of biologists to develop the plan. Ralph is a retired University ofTennessee wildlife professor who conducted research on bobwhites through most of his career. Co-leaders were Mark Gudlin (Assistant Chief of Wildlife with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, formerly the agency's Small Game Program Leader) and Don McKenzie (Southeast Field Representative for the Wildlife Management Institute). The final result was truly a team effort, combining the contributions of more than 50 biologists from the 22 state agencies involved, as well as numerous federal agencies, universities and private organizations.
Special thanks go to Steve Brady, a biologist with NRCS, who conducted a custom analysis of National Resources Inventory land-use data for this plan.
In March 2002, the first edition of the resulting Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI) was completed. This Initiative is the first landscape-scale habitat restoration and population recovery plan for bobwhites in the United States.
A Nearly Rangewide Plan for Bobwhites
The northern bobwhite has endured a severe decline in its population in the United States for at least three decades. As we enter the 21st century,the bobwhite faces a distinct and imminent threat of extirpation in significant portions of its range.The boundaries of the present range of northern bobwhites in the United States incorporate 786,820,800 acres (1,229,408 square miles), little changed from the land occupied during pre-Colonial times (Figure 1). However, the relatively stable range border does not reflect the uneven distribution within this border, nor the sharp decline in population density throughout most of its range. In 1980, the base-line year chosen for this plan, the autumn population of bobwhites was estimated to be 58,857,000. By 1999, it had declined 65.8 percent to 20,141,000. The breeding population was estimated to be 19,619,000 in 1980, and 6,714,000 in 1999. The Breeding Bird Survey showed a decline in bobwhites averaging 3.8 percent per year from 1982 to 1999. Projecting this trend to 2020 indicates an additional loss of 53.9 percent over the next two decades, leaving a breeding population of only 3,095,000. Assuming a male to female ratio of 1:1, we would be faced with a maximum of 1,547,000 breeding pairs, less than 1.3 pairs per square mile. While this rate of decline is devastating, there is clear indication that in recent years the rate of decline has increased rangewide. For some individual states and Bird Conservation Regions, the decline is sharply higher. Breeding Bird Survey data suggest that in some states the northern bobwhite could be approaching extirpation by the end of this decade.
The recovery of the northern bobwhite will be made increasingly difficult by the continuing loss of the land base needed for implementing the habitat changes necessary for this recovery. Each 100,000 increase in the human population in the United States is accompanied by a conversion of 150,000 acres of rural land to urban uses, rendering it largely unfit for bobwhite management. The U.S. Census Bureau projects the U.S. population will grow by about 43 million by 2020. This
