QU now in seventh Quail Habitat Initiative
Jan. 12, 2007
Coveys are multiplying on participants' farms.
MARSHALL, Mo.-Mike Gremaud enjoys hunting quail and is active in the Gary R. Pointer Memorial Chapter of Quail Unlimited. You might think it strange, then, that he doesn't own a single bird dog. The reason is simple - he doesn't need to.
Gremaud was one of six hunters who uncased shotguns the morning of Jan. 5 in Saline County. There were plenty of dogs on hand, including a bouncy English setter, three stylish German shorthairs and a Brittany spaniel with boundless energy.
"I never have trouble finding somebody with dogs," Gremaud said cheerfully as the party waded into a field of head-high grass. "There's always somebody who says, 'I've got dogs if you've got a place to hunt.'"
Gremaud and a friend, Dave Cramer, bought a 60-acre Saline County farm specifically to manage for quail. When they got the land, it was almost entirely in row crops.
"We knew there was at least one covey there. We heard them. We decided to do something different with it, and got with Brent to develop a plan. It has paid off. The last couple of years we have had four coveys here."
Brent Vandeloecht, a private land conservationist with the Missouri Department of Conservation was along for the hunt, too, enjoying the fruits of his collaboration with Gremaud. Quail Unlimited (QU) Missouri Council Chairman Wayne Nierman organized the hunt to celebrate the success of QU's Quail Habitat Initiative (QHI) Program. He invited the Conservation Department's upland wildlife coordinator, Aaron Jeffries, to see what is happening in Saline County.
Others on hand included QU Missouri State Director Jef Hodges and Danny Dillon, who owns the farm where the hunt would move later in the morning.
QHI brings together private landowners, local QU chapters and the Conservation Department to promote grassland wildlife. The bobwhite quail is the poster child for the effort, but the program benefits a wide array of other wildlife, not to mention fish and soil and water conservation.
On this day, however, the focus was on bobwhites. Fanning out across one field after another, dogs and men found the hunting surprisingly challenging. The problem was not lack of birds - the dogs repeatedly found bird scent and went on point - but the abundance of cover.
Locating quail is simple when they are confined to a few islands of cover in a sea of harvested fields. However, when they have large expanses of managed warm-season grasses mixed with wildflowers and legumes, plus miles of wide, brushy field borders to get lost in, the birds' chances of eluding dogs increase dramatically. So do their chances of eluding wild predators.
The group did find three coveys of about 20 birds each in the morning. They located two more coveys in the afternoon. The birds were skittish, flushing as the dogs went on point and before hunters could catch up. Although they missed the "covey rise" that is the gold standard of quail hunting, the hunters had plenty of action chasing down singles and pairs.
Between shooting opportunities, talk frequently turned to quail management. Gremaud, still relatively new to the game, had lots of questions, such as how often to burn native grass pastures and how dense to make brushy "feathered edges" where trees are felled to create quail cover near fields. Vandeloecht, whose job is working with private landowners, had ready answers.
Gremaud and Cramer have enrolled nearly the entire farm they own jointly in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), taking advantage of incentives for soil, water and wildlife conservation under the federal farm bill. They have used various CRP practices to address soil conservation and wildlife management needs.
QHI contributed further to the affordability of quail habitat work that Gremaud and Cramer have done on their farm. Through the program, QU's national organization coordinates the activities of local QU chapters and the Conservation Department, which match one another's funding of habitat work on private land. Since the program's inception in 2000, QHI has poured nearly $500,000 into such habitat projects.
Dec. 31 marked the end of QHI-5, the fifth sign-up period for the program. QU put more than $106,000 into 119 Missouri projects during that period. More than $167,000 was allocated for Missouri in QHI-6, which ends Dec. 31, 2007. More than $66,000 of that money still is available to QU chapters.
Some QU chapters have become so adept at using QHI funds that they already have spent approximately $40,000 allocated for QHI-7, which runs through 2008.
"This is one of the most effective tools in our toolbox," said Vandeloecht. "It is a great way to make a piece of land better for quail and other grassland wildlife."
Hodges said QHI also is one of the simplest programs to use. Checks go directly from QU to participating landowners. Twenty-five farmers participated in QHI-5 in Saline County. Saline County farmers also are taking advantage of conservation incentives offered through the federal farm bill. In that county alone 49 producers have enrolled an average of more than 650 acres each in the Conservation Security Program.
"We're talking about big, landscape-type changes here," said Vandeloecht. "People in this county have really jumped on the CP-33 program for field buffers. A lot of these guys are really proud of putting in those buffers. They want signs to show everyone they are doing it for a reason."
One reason, besides benefiting wildlife, is that cost-sharing improves their bottom line. Vandeloecht said the average yield on some crop fields has increased from 170 to 190 bushels of corn per acre because incentive payments allowed them to take marginal land out of production.
"They like it because they get to concentrate on farming their best land," he said.
Along with other private and government conservation incentive programs, QHI is making a difference. With more habitat available, quail were able to take advantage of favorable nesting conditions in 2006 and post population increases in six of the state's eight regions. Jeffries said habitat work may take several years to bear fruit in a particular area, but eventually landowners begin to notice increased numbers of quail, rabbits and other wildlife.
As the shadows lengthened,Gremaud suggested ending the hunt. "There's a lot more farm to cover, but daylight's running thin," he said. Having too much high-quality quail habitat to hunt in one day is a dilemma many Missourians would like to have. To learn more about how to face that dilemma, contact the nearest office of the Conservation Department, the Farm Service Agency or the Natural Resources Conservation Service. For information about QHI, contact Jef Hodges, 382 N.W. Highway 18, Clinton, MO 64735, phone (660) 885-7057, or visit www.qu.org/.