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Quail Forever Forms

New Quail Conservation Group Launched

Set against the dramatic background of a landscape-scale effort to restore the bobwhite quail to huntable populations across its native range, perhaps the launch of a new nonprofit dedicated to the cause was somehow predictable. The event might have held all the drama of another shoe dropping were it not for the fact that the struggle to renew wild quail has sparked a bit of an unseemly confrontation between two established species-specific conservation groups. You could even call it a turf battle.

The August announcement from Pheasants Forever that the group would launch the spin-off Quail Forever based on PF's proven organizational structure created a confrontational atmosphere. The move is essentially a head-on competition with 24-year-old Quail Unlimited for members and conservation-program dollars. While touting the strengths of its own strategies, PF's words easily can be read into for what it thinks of QU's shortcomings.

"Quail-like pheasants-don't migrate, so we believe locally raised funds shouldn't migrate either," wrote PF president and CEO Howard Vincent in the group's announcement. "We want to do what we can to make a difference for quail and quail hunters before it becomes too late." The announcement highlighted the efficiency of applying PF's central organization and biologists to the quail task and promises that "All locally raised event funds remain local for use by chapters in habitat development projects."

While carefully crafting a message to avoid, what he called, "sounding like sour grapes," QU President Rocky Evans wavered be-tween skeptical and incredulous in discussing PF's move. "This could splinter the little support for quail that's out there," he said. "This is not going to bring new people, new money or new habitat for quail. If it would, we would support them.

"I feel that the launch of QF says that the folks at PF feel that they need to grow for the sake of growth. Our mission is quail. It has been for over 24 years. We're not the one that is jumping into another organization's lap. There is always a strong need for advocacy for quail, and we welcome anyone who is truly interested in helping in that capacity. We have been prospecting for members and QU chapters since 1981. We doubt that there is an untapped source of support that can sustain two national quail conservation organizations."

The Quail Forever launch laid out an ambitious plan to bring "localized decision-making with lean, low-overhead central administration," focusing first on the states where quail and pheasant ranges overlap, where the group's pheasant habitat work also has benefited quail populations, and where PF chapters already exist. The first-year goal is to form 50 local chapters based on recruiting 12,000 members to the new group, although PF's Vice-President for Field Operations, Rick Young, said that the longer term is harder to predict.

As SSM Senior Editor Vic Venters laid out in his two-part article "Quail Hunting's New Good Old Days" (May/June & July/August), the declining northern bobwhite quail population faces challenges in the fractured habitat of its historic range. An ambitious recovery plan, the Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI), offers a lot of hope that some very targeted and intensive habitat management can go a long way toward reversing the quail's decline. Whether that effort is better served by one nonprofit or another--or both--remains to be seen.

For more information on the NBCI, visit the Southeast Quail Study Group Website at http://seqsg.qu.org. To learn more about who's doing what for quail, contact Quail Forever, 866-45-QUAIL; www.pheasantsforever.org/quail or Quail Unlimited, 803-637-5731; www.qu.org.

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