Bobwhite quails reintroduced to Pennsylvania

The bobwhite quail used to roam all 67 counties of Pennsylvania, however the species disappeared from the state as land improvement drove them throughout the border. Now, the chicken has lastly come residence to roost — with somewhat assist from state conservationists.

The Pennsylvania Sport Fee has been reintroducing the bobwhite quail, identified for its distinctive whistle, to the Letterkenny Military Depot over the previous couple of weeks. On March 19, the fee introduced it had efficiently launched 50 bobwhite quails on the Franklin County grounds, the place they joined 26 birds from a earlier drop. Since then, it has added 11 extra, bringing the whole inhabitants as much as 87.

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Travis Lau, an data officer for the sport fee, stated Thursday that there aren’t any different deliberate releases for the 12 months. The sport fee will assess what number of extra bobwhite quails needs to be added in 2025.

This reintroduction has been 12 years within the making. The sport fee drew up a administration plan for the bobwhite quail in 2011, aiming to first decide what number of birds have been left within the state. Surveys performed in 2013 and 2014 concluded that the bobwhite quail was formally extirpated from Pennsylvania, although biologists imagine they disappeared within the late Nineties or early 2000s.

The sport fee has attributed the loss to shrinking farmland, one of many chicken’s most popular habitats. In keeping with federal information, farms lined 61% of Pennsylvania’s complete land mass in 1920. As of 2022, they take up simply 25%. Specialists additionally imagine that harsh winters and advancing agricultural expertise drove the bobwhite quail out of state.

Because the administration plan progressed, the sport fee recognized Letterkenny Military Depot, an unlimited web site specializing in air and missile protection modernization, as a doable habitat for reintroduction. The U.S. Military ceded roughly 2,700 acres of the 18,000-acre property for a “bobwhite quail focus space,” which the sport fee developed beginning in 2017. Specialists visited the positioning because it was ready for the birds, and in 2023, the Nationwide Bobwhite and Grasslands Initiative’s technical committee declared the area appropriate for the quails.

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The birds have been trapped and relocated from three totally different areas, two of them have been additionally army websites. Fort Knox in Kentucky provided 15 of the bobwhite quails and Fort Barfoot in Virginia one other 22. The remaining 50 got here from Tall Timbers, a land belief in Florida.

Although Lau stated the birds shall be basically “left on their very own” to acclimate and, hopefully, mate, the sport fee has monitoring plans in place. Each bobwhite quail at Letterkenny is tagged with a leg band, and a few with radio collars. Small digital gadgets planted throughout the property will assist two College of Delaware graduate college students monitor and examine the birds’ patterns and hardiness this summer season. The sport fee hopes the bobwhite quail won’t solely flourish at Letterkenny, however finally enterprise out into close by countrysides.

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