The apparent first-in-the-nation accomplishment of formal habitat restoration objectives for the Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI) was achieved in 2007 in the lowlands of southeastern Missouri, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

The NBCI was published in 2002, with a vision to restore bobwhite populations across the core range to 1980 levels. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) immediately embraced its population goals and habitat objectives for the state, stepping down the national plan with habitat restoration targets for each suitable county in the state. The Scott County habitat restoration objective, in the midst of the intensively agricultural Mississippi Delta region of the Bootheel, was 4,500 acres. Two developments in 2004 brought that objective within reach.

First, the CP33 Habitat Buffers for Upland Birds initiative (CP33) was approved as a continuous practice for the Conservation Reserve Program. While tailored specifically for ideal bobwhite habitat in cropped landscapes, the CP33 by itself likely would not have been compelling enough to landowners to meet the habitat objectives. But the second development implementation of the new Conservation Security Program (CSP) in Scott County put the habitat restoration effort in high gear.

CSP rewards landowners for implementing conservation practices; the more conservation, the higher the reward. A partnership between the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Scott County Soil and Water Conservation District, and MDC devised a creative plan to require landowners to install CP33 field borders in order to qualify to receive the highest rewards under CSP. CP33 enrollments skyrocketed, in addition to other quail-habitat practices approved under CSP, such as planting native grasses on center-pivot irrigation field corners. More than 7,000 acres of suitable quail habitat now have been established in the county, which previously was 95 percent row crops or close-grazed pasture.

MDC bird surveys and hunter reports indicate bobwhite populations in Scott County are responding dramatically. Landowners and hunters report seeing more quail than in decades. MDC hunter surveys from the 1940s through the 1960s reported hunters finding about five coveys per eight-hour hunting day in the area. During the 2007-2008 hunting season, multiple hunting parties reported finding an average of about eight coveys per eight-hour hunt. CP33 monitoring surveys in the southeastern region of the state document five times as many coveys around crop fields with bobwhite buffers than in fields without them.

This success validates the NBCI's vision, MDC's implementation strategy, the land's capability to produce abundant wild bobwhites, Farm Bill programs and USDA agencies' ability to deliver ample quality habitat, and landowners' willingness to provide wildlife habitat when incentives are right. This success also raises an unexpected but gratifying question what to do next after quail restoration is achieved? For more information, contact Bill White, Missouri Department of Conservation, at (800) 669-3787, ext. 3512. (dfm)