RANCHING Wildlife A
Scaled Quail Research Hopes to Pave Way for Rolling Plains Comeback
FTER A NIGHT’S RAIN, THE RED DIRT KNOX COUNTY RANCH roads in which Becky Ruzicka drives are a bit soft, even muddy in places. Undaunted, she
drives her Kawasaki Mule through the barbed wire gate and past cedars and mesquite trees, all the while watching a GPS unit that tells her the position of each quail surrogator she has stationed on the rangelands. “Through this research we hope to determine the
effectiveness of using translocation as a tool to re- establish scaled quail populations within the Rolling Plains,” she explains while gathering equipment before we make a short drive through the brush to the fi rst location where she’ll release a bevy of birds. “Specifi cally,” she contends, “this study is designed to
help us identify best practices for scaled quail transloca- tion.” As part of Texas A&M University’s Reversing the Decline of Quail in Texas initiative and a continuation of the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch’s (RPQRR) Operation Transfusion project, she hopes to unlock the secrets that, to date, have prohibited scaled quail from inhabiting every niche of their historical range in Texas. According to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
maps, the historic range of scaled quail is generally on a line that extends a couple of counties east of the 100th meridian (roughly US 83). However, the species’ range has diminished (especially in the Rolling Plains) and is relegated to isolated pockets to the point that it’s almost entirely extirpated from its eastern ranges. The scaled quail was common in this area prior to about 1988, when populations essentially vanished.
Ruzicka’s research could lay the groundwork for a comprehensive trap and translocate protocol that hopes to reintroduce scaled quail to their historic ranges. “We identifi ed 2 release sites in Knox County with
interested landowners who have well-managed habitat,” she explains. “We trapped birds from 7 source ranches in the Edwards Plateau and Rolling Plains to compare survival and dispersal between the 2 groups.” Ruzicka explains that in her research, she is hold-
ing the birds in a surrogator for 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 weeks respectively to fi nd the optimum length of time within that range that maximizes survival and minimizes dispersal. Before today’s release, Ruzicka and research associ-
ates from the RPQRR surveyed the brushlands to con- fi rm that scaled quail abundance on the host ranches was low. With few scaled quail found in Wichita River badlands, their chances of accurately monitoring new birds introduced onto the range increases. Ruzicka and RPQRR researcher Drew White will
monitor the birds 3 days a week until early August. During the telemetry monitoring phase of the project, they’ll check the birds for survivability and determine if the females are nesting. After the telemetry monitoring is done, she’ll be
back in the fall to trap quail and see if the introduced populations survived the summer and successfully nested a brood of new quail. “We hope to be able to include translocation as another ‘tool in the toolbox’ for wild scaled quail conservation,” says Ruzicka.
tscra.org
August 2016 The Cattleman 83
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