Thursday, March 26, 2009
Future generations will judge us harshly unless we try to restore quail
Bill Cochran
Recent columns
Few sounds are more enticing that the distinctly country call of a bob white quail on a warm spring morning.
What’s that worth to you?
And how about the tension-packed flush and flight of a covey of quail out from under the nose of your staunch pointing dog. What is the value of that?
Ten million dollars?
That’s roughly the estimated cost of a five-year Quail Action Plan adopted late February by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
If you get the feeling we have been down this road before, you are correct.
In 1988, the General Assembly established a joint subcommittee to find out why quail numbers were drastically declining. No funding was included and the effort failed.
Then, in 1996, DGIF developed a quail management plan, but the effort saw modest success when only 35 percent of the funding needed was provided.
In the meanwhile, quail numbers have continued to decline 4.2 percent annually and the number of quail hunters has plummeted approximately 92 percent since 1970.
This may be the last chance to reverse the trend, and, at best, there is a whole lot going against its success.
The lack of funding was what killed previous efforts. Will it be any different this time? The plan is being launched at a time when DGIF is trimming its expenditures in the face of economic uncertainties.
“We are either going to do this or not. This is the time to do it,” said Charles Yates, DGIF board member from Cleveland.
“Let’s don’t make the same mistake,” said Ward Burton, meaning don’t let the effort die on the vine as in the past. Former NASCAR driver Burton is a board member from Halifax.
Board member James Hazel of Oakton said funding the quail study would mean taking money from other species, but he added that most of these are doing well.
During a meeting last year, one board member said it would be unacceptable to shift funds from other programs, but in view of the current economic situation, that no longer appears to be an overriding concern.
Bob Duncan, executive director of DGIF, balked when the board pressured him to fund the entire five-year plan; instead, he committed to first-year funding. Other needs must be considered in the budget process, he said.
“I am optimistic we will find a way to fund this important work,” he said.
New funding sources are being considered. They include a habitat stamp that would be required of sportsmen in addition to a hunting and fishing license. Also under review are endowments, grants and a system that would collect fees at DGIF wildlife management areas.
Even if DGIF had a $10 million wad of cash in its pocket exclusively for quail, success in restoring this species is not guaranteed. It won’t be easy to reverse changes in habitat that have been a major contributor to the quail population crash. Success may very well depend on the wide-spread development of crops for biofuel, not birds.
No small factor is the fact that the quail is a species of private land, not public. DGIF will have to depend on enormous interest and assistance from private landowners. One of the agency’s biggest efforts will be to provide workshops, demonstrations and literature to assist private landowners in managing their property for quail. Will enough landowners buy into the expense and labor necessary to make it work?
No one should be disillusioned into thinking that this will be a quick fix or that it even is possible to return to the golden era of quail and quail hunting. A realistic goal is to restore populations to 1980 levels, and that, at best, is going to be perplexingly slow process.
Can it be done? Who knows? Should we try? We have no choice. We can’t risk letting future generations judge us and say, “They sat back and did nothing while this great bird disappeared.”
A copy of the 23-page quail plan can be found at dgif.virginia.gov.
Your comments welcome: xtrails@earthlink.net.
