If you love wild quail ‌
WILD
BOBWHITE QUAIL stir passions in people, support valued traditions, and create fond memories. Families, communities and entire cultures have treasured wild bobwhites.
MO Dept. of Conservation
This unique heritage is fading, as bobwhites and their grassland wildlife kin decline severely almost everywhere they occur: • Even after 75 years of accumulated bobwhite research. • Even after major wildlife management success stories for wood ducks, wild turkey, bald eagles and many other species. • Even after thousands of miscellaneous local projects over the years by state wildlife agencies, private organizations and landowners. Bobwhite restoration is major “unfinished business” of wildlife conservation. It is time for serious teamwork. Now.
Across the bobwhite’s range, 25 state wildlife agencies and their partners have crafted a unified national strategy — the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI). The NBCI strategic plan establishes the first-ever national vision, roadmap and unified effort for quail restoration. The initiative now is committed to providing crucial national leadership, coordination and services to help state wildlife agencies and all our partners accelerate implementation of the strategic recovery plan for wild bobwhite quail. If you have the requisite vision and means to make a big difference … if you want be a part of wildlife management history … if you want to leave a lasting legacy … Welcome to the Bobwhite Foundation.
The Bobwhite Foundation Vision Achieve widespread restoration of huntable populations of wild bobwhite quail and the open forest and native grassland habitats on which they and other grassland wildlife depend.
Mission
To promote rangewide restoration of the northern bobwhite and its habitat, through implementation of the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative, the unified strategy to restore wild quail.
Goals
1. Establish and sustain the full operational capacity of NBCI-affiliated quail and grassland conservation initiatives. 2. Develop long-term stability of that capacity through a permanent, sustainable fund that will secure effective NBCI-affiliated quail and grassland conservation initiatives.
Teamwork
The Bobwhite Foundation team complements and empowers state and local conservation partners, by providing vital regional and national: • LEADERSHIP • COORDINATION • CAPACITY
Todd Bogenschutz, IOWA DNR
Priority Functions Reconnect Agriculture and Quail PRIORITY: Improve federal agriculture policy. Federal agricultural policy can hurt and help bobwhites. A permanent voice in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the NBCI will advance native grassland habitat conservation in agricultural and other rural landscapes.
Build a Public Movement
PRIORITY: Mobilize the public. Build a popular movement to lift and propel local, state and national bobwhite conservation. Strategic communications and outreach techniques will build upon, and magnify, the leadership and successes of professional quail managers, sporting groups and outdoor writers.
Strengthen Conservation with Better Information PRIORITY: Document progress and success. Boost NBCI states’ capacity to document progress and success with data. Implement coordinated quail monitoring and habitat tracking to measure and demonstrate grassland bird responses to habitat management. PRIORITY: Manage comprehensive information. Establish the Bobwhite Information Network, the first central bobwhite technical database and comprehensive national information service to consolidate and manage data for the benefit of all quail conservation partners. PRIORITY: Demonstrate importance of quail hunting. Periodically document the magnitude and trends of participation in quail hunting across the bobwhite range, along with the sport’s cultural and economic impacts.
Dr. Dennis Chessman, GA NRCS
Reconnect Cows with Quail PRIORITY: Develop native-grass production models. Develop science-based, native-grassland livestock production systems for the eastern U.S. that enable economically and ecologically sustainable production of cows and quail. PRIORITY: Accelerate adoption of native forages. Empower cattlemen to produce both cows and quail by demonstrating successful, science-based production systems that use native-grass forages that provide both forage and habitat.
PRIORITY: Focus public policy on native grasslands. Establish public policies that promote the restoration of healthy native grasslands that can support abundant cows and quail across pastured landscapes, through the leadership of an alliance of native grassland conservationists. PRIORITY: Protect and maintain western rangelands. Keep western rangelands prime for quail and grassland birds by linking technology, sustainable livestock production, public policy and land management to ensure continued compatibility of livestock and quail for the long term.
Reconnect Forests with Quail PRIORITY: Manage forests actively. Reinvigorate aggressive, purposeful forest management on private and public lands to achieve landscape-scale restoration of native forest savannahs with diverse understory grasslands. PRIORITY: Promote prescribed fire. Re-establish prescribed fire as a commonly accepted, widespread and frequently used forest savannah and grasslands management tool to maintain high-quality grassland bird habitats. Andy Vander Yacht
Ben Robinson, KY Dept. of Fish & Wildlife Resources
Connect Mine Lands with Quail PRIORITY: Engage mine land interests. Collaborate with mining companies, landowners, utilities, policymakers and conservation partners to promote balanced mine land restoration outcomes that benefit bobwhites, other grassland wildlife and people.
THE BOBWHITE FOUNDATION TEAM National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI) www.bringbackbobwhites.org The unified, 25-state strategy to restore wild quail. NBCI establishes national leadership, coordination and capacity to help states and local partners to restore huntable bobwhite populations and other grassland birds and wildlife across the species’ range. The NBCI is a product and initiative of the professional members of the National Bobwhite Technical Committee, and is guided by the national oversight of the NBCI Management Board.
Center for Native Grasslands Management (CNGM) http://nativegrasses.utk.edu This visionary center provides leadership to address longstanding, native grassland management challenges through applied research, associated outreach and policy engagement to producers, landowners and decision-makers, with an emphasis on market-based solutions. CONTACT: Don McKenzie Director, NBCI 501.941.7994 mckenzie_nbci@utk.edu
Pat Keyser Director, CNGM 865.974.0644 pkeyser@utk.edu
Rhodes Logan Director of Development, UTIA 865.974.1934 wlogan@utk.edu
MO Dept. of Conservation
Dick Wilberforce, http://wilberforcephotoart.com
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