Georgia's bobwhite quail initiative : 2000-2009 summary and future strategy

Georgia's Bobwhite Quail Initiative 2000-2009 Summary and Future Strategy
Georgia's Bobwhite Quail Initiative (BQI) is a proactive effort to restore and maintain habitat for Northern Bobwhites (Colinus virginianus) on private lands across 15 counties of Georgia's Upper Coastal Plain. Secondary objectives include improving habitat for certain songbirds and improved quail hunting and wildlife viewing. Funding has been provided through state appropriations, the sale of BQI vehicle license plates (tags) and matching grants. The program now depends solely on vehicle tag revenue and matching funds.
During 2000-2009 landowners enrolled for BQI financial incentives received over $1.9 million for habitat practices, and technical guidance was provided to 1,937 landowners on 746,527 acres. Summer monitoring found BQI treatment fields averaged over 300% higher bobwhite occurrence than controls (treatments = 1.9 quail/field; controls 0.5 quail/field. Additionally, BQI funded research and monitoring have documented increased occurrence of certain songbird species that are also in decline. The BQI has generated many additional benefits including leveraged outside funding (over $350,000) for additional management and research; youth quota quail hunts; high customer satisfaction; and increased educational outreach regarding the bobwhite decline and effective restoration techniques. Georgia's BQI has served as a model for other states and has played a key role in development of bobwhite friendly practices in the Farm Bill.
Georgia's future bobwhite restoration strategy is to expand BQI within the framework of the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI). This includes identifying and prioritizing spatially explicit landscapes over which to focus management programs, funding, technical assistance, research and monitoring.
Currently, the development of additional BQI landowner contracts for financial incentives has been suspended due to revenue declines. Future bobwhite restoration success is dependent on securing adequate state and federal funding for landowner incentives and technical

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assistance; and working collaboratively with other state, federal and NGO conservation partners. The information below provides details relative to BQI inputs and outputs during 20002009.
BQI Inputs
BQI Landowner Participation and Habitat Management Running Totals 2000-2009

Number of Cooperators
Total Crop Fields and Forest Stands
Dry Miles
Dry Habitat Acres Irrigated Habitat Miles Irrigated Habitat Acres Pine Savanna Habitat Acres
Herbicide Maintenance (ac) Herbicide Payment Direct Habitat Management Acres Total Habitat Acres Impacted Total Habitat Management Incentives

Crop Field Longleaf Other Pine
Prescribe Burn (ac) Heavy Thin (ac)

1,119
2,799 2,249
384 156 1,705 36,479 227 1,384 15,553 10,316 3002 209 $8,188
54,810
150,401 $1,901,865.10

BQI Landowner Participation, habitat management and financial incentives during 2007-2009 (most recent contract period)

Landowners 117

Crop Fields 207

Pine Stands 56

Habitat Acres 13,843

Annual Payment $219,343

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BQI Outputs
BQI Bobwhite Monitoring 2000 - 2009

# Quail

BQI Monitoring
Average Number of Quail/Field
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

BQI Control

BQI Treatments averaged 1.9 quail per field and were significantly greater than controls, which averaged 0.5 quail per field. Generally, implementation of BQI practices in the appropriate landscape increased and sustained bobwhite occurrence. It is also important to note that bobwhite populations on control fields (i.e. no habitat work) are continuing a steady decline and without funding for habitat development and professional technical guidance will continue to disappear from large portions of Georgia's landscape.
Ideally, intensive monitoring of bobwhites and grassland songbirds should resume in BQI. This is the only way to accurately document programmatic contributions to long-term conservation goals as set forth in NBCI and Georgia's State Wildlife Action Plan. Monitoring is also a prerequisite to facilitate Adaptive Resource Management whereby feedback is provided so as to reduce management uncertainty and ultimately maximize resource benefits. It is estimated that $250,000 per year would be needed to monitor at levels needed to facilitate assessment of minimum thresholds of landscape scale impacts necessary to elicit a significant bobwhite population response. At a lower intensity $35,000 per year would fully fund annual monitoring using fall bobwhite covey counts and spring breeding bird survey counts to generally track bobwhite abundance and songbird use across a significant sample of BQI enrolled farms and paired controls.

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BQI Information and Education Summary 2000 - 2009

Year
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Totals

Programs/ Presentations
14 6 2 17 30 19 31 45 68 39 271

Field Day Presentations
2 8 6 22 11 1 3 9 8 12 82

Total People
751 888 1,113 2,738 1,650 961 1,266 2,616 2,251 2,852 17,086

Professional Articles/Abs
1 1 5 2 4 0 2 0 0 0 15

Popular Articles/ Interviews
2 4 5 8 19 8 11 10 12 8 87

TV Spots/Videos
3 4 2 4 0 0 5 1 1 0 20

Display Booth Days
5 10
6 8 7 2 2 9 3 4 56

BQI Youth Hunts Summary 2003-2009

Hunt Year
2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10
Total

Number of
Hunts 3 8 8 4 7 7 7
44

Number Youth Hunters
7 15 16
6 14 13 14
85

Total Hours Hunted
20 51 47 26 38.5 38.0 33.3
253.8

Coveys Found
18 21 20
7 6 6 15
94

Coveys Per Hour 0.9 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.5
0.4

Quail Harvested
11 2 6 7 0 1 6
33

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Georgia Dept. of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Division National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative Step-down Strategy
Finalize and release GA NBCI Prioritize landscapes and quantify objectives Hold Town Hall Meetings and form Landowner Cooperatives Target technical assistance/outreach efforts and Farm Bill and conservation Partner's
programs and practices into NBCI Priority Landscapes Continue to seek additional funding for programs, practices, technical assistance and
focused implementation of Farm Bill and other conservation programs
GA-NBCI Tiered Step-down Approach
1) Focal Regions: comprised of predominately high and moderate priority counties within two or more State Soil and Water Conservation Districts in Georgia's Upper Coastal Plain GA-NBCI Region
- East - Central - Southwest
Restoration Potential
- High Priority - Medium Priority
BQI Counties

2) Focal Areas:

A county or cluster of counties within each NBCI region with >50% of the county designated as high priority through the Biologist Ranking Information (BRI) process.

3) Focal Landscapes:

Landscapes 6,400 acres designated as high priority through the BRI process and can be located within or outside the 3 NBCI regions.

4) Focal Sites:

Sites smaller than focal landscapes (i.e. <6,400 acres) that meet certain habitat and management criteria and deemed to be potentially good to excellent for bobwhites by the WRD biologist.
Management unit >2,000 acres outside Focal Regions Management unit >1,500 acres inside Focal Regions Landscape context deemed suitable

(Author: Reggie Thackston, Georgia DNR, WRD, Private Lands Program Manager)