RANCHING Wildlife
$4 Million Awarded for Texas Quail Restoration in Focus Areas
Habitat restoration to benefi t 24 other grassland birds in decline T
HERE IS NEW HOPE FOR BOBWHITE QUAIL, AND FOR DOZENS of other birds and animals that share the same native grassland habitat, thanks to $4 million in
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department grants, using a special appropriation by the Texas Legislature to help bring back the quail. “We chose places where quail are gone, but they
haven’t been gone long; kind of the “front line” in the battle to restore bobwhites,” said Robert Perez, TPWD upland game bird program leader. “It’s a fi rst out, fi rst back in concept. Can we bring quail back? That’s the question we’re exploring in these focus areas.” The focus areas are: • Southeast Texas area — close to a dozen coun- ties around Columbus, Sealy, Victoria
• I-35 Corridor area in Navarro and Ellis County • Rolling Plains/Cross Timbers area — counties around and south of Wichita Falls
“We’re using the $4 million to concentrate efforts
in certain counties, with partners, so the funding goes on the ground and you build up enough habitat to support viable quail populations that are visible in numbers,” Perez said. “The government will never be able to pay enough
to restore millions of acres for quail habitat. The goal is to demonstrate success in various areas of the state and
74 The Cattleman November 2014
show that quail habitat can be restored, to inspire and guide private landowners throughout the quail range.” Fifteen grants have been awarded and more are in
the process of being awarded to various non-profi ts, universities and others for grassland restoration in the 3 focus areas. The $4 million in grants comes from the sale of $7 upland game bird stamps purchased by hunters. Grant partners include organizations like the Wild-
life Habitat Federation west of Houston, the Western Navarro Bobwhite Recovery Initiative south of Dallas, and the Grassland Restoration Incentive Program (GRIP) under the Oaks & Prairies Joint Venture, which has already delivered habitat restoration projects on more than 36,000 acres of grasslands in the 3 focus areas. In addition, Perez received a federal Wildlife Res-
toration Program grant for $200,000 over 4 years, to fund multi-year quail population monitoring to measure the impact that these combined restoration efforts are having on quail populations and other grassland birds in the focus areas. “What’s different here is the monitoring,” Perez said.
“That scale and quality of monitoring is often left out because there isn’t enough staff or money to do it. But this time we are carefully counting the birds in new ways, before and after restoration. We’re hiring sum- mer technicians to cover thousands of points, counting
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