[TN-Bird] Re: Bobwhite quail need more help
- From: Alice Loftin / Don Miller <pandion@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: TN-Bird <TN-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:26:08 -0400 (EDT)
October 12, 2011
I have read with interest the various posts on bobwhites today and thought I
should add a few comments.
I have kept daily bird records since January 1, 1994--most of which pertain to
Greene County , where I live--and have been pleasantly surprised to have
observed (heard, mostly) relatively a sizable number of bobwhites. In quite a
few instances, the observations are of the same birds in or near the same
locations, but in the aggregate, the picture is one of fairly widespread
observations everywhere in the county except in heavily forested areas. I have
even encountered bobwhites inside the Greeneville city limits.
Almost all of my observations have been of birds in early successional
habitats, and a great many of them have been on or near properties managed by
TWRA. In fact, there are enough of these sites to allow me to predict with a
fairly high degree of confidence where and when I will find a bobwhite. I often
try to find one on our spring and fall counts to ensure minimal representation
for the species.
Greene is still an agriculturally significant county, and this surely has
something to do with my findings,as many farm owners allow part of their
property to revert to old fields. However, as parts of the county die off
agriculturally, some land also reverts to old fields before it is sold for
subdivisions or whatever, and this probably produces some bobwhite habitat for
a short time.
In any case, for various reasons, Greene is still a place where one is not
stunned to hear or see a bobwhite. It is one of my passionate hopes as a
resident of the county and a birder that concerted efforts by professionals and
dedicated amateurs can secure a happy future for these magnificent animals.
Don Miller
Greeneville, Greene Co., TN
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Applegate" <Roger.Applegate@xxxxxx>
To: Viclcsw@xxxxxxx, tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 7:05:19 PM
Subject: [TN-Bird] Re: Bobwhite quail need more help
This is a very timely topic. Next week at the TWRA Commission meeting in
Nashville, Don McKenzie, who is the director of the National Bobwhite
Conservation Initiative will be speaking briefly to the TWRA Commission. Don's
program, known as the NBCI, is headquartered in Knoxville at UT. This program
is supported by TWRA and the state wildlife agencies of 20+ states and
counting. A national plan for restoring this bird has been launched, in a
revised form, and each participating state will be preparing an NBCI plan to
show how they can accomplish restoration. TWRA has drafted such a plan and is
awaiting its adoption in some form.
As comments to some of the biological issues raised, I have made it my life's
goal to know everything that is known about the ecology and biology of
bobwhites from the physiology of the cell all to way out to landscapes
consisting of the entire bobwhite range in the world (New England to
Guatemala). In fact I have written a book on this subject that lacks a
publisher because bobwhites aren't even of importance to the publishing
business. I am also conducting PhD research on this bird in my spare time.
Completed dissertation is about 5 years away. This is my qualification for
answering or commenting on these questions.
Now for the comments: We don't know how many bobwhites there need to be in a
"community" in order to maintain a viable population. I would estimate, based
on what we know, that it is several hundreds. What we are confident in, is that
it requires a minimum of 1,000 to 5,000 contiguous acres of really good habitat
in order to sustain a viable population, whatever that number may be. And yes
the domesticated forms are bad news to populations. Mississippi State Univ.
demonstrated this at Ames Plantation.
A final note, one of the things to understand about BBS is that there are
issues with the way it is conducted that question how well bobwhites are
detected. First of all, it is run too late in the spring season to detect the
largest numbers of bobwhites. Also, the analysis of this survey is complicated
and can barely to understood by anyone with less than a PHD in math and
statistics. Therefore, its interpretation is not straight forward. This does
not, however, preclude that fact that it is unfortunately all we have to go on
at this point. And I do believe the declining trend. The real issue is that you
can?t extrapolate from the data that bobwhites will be extinct in a specific
year. They are already extinct in localized areas of the state, and country,
but are quite numerous in others (although few others probably). Bobwhites
respond well to management but it has to be the right management. They evolved
with old field successional habitats maintained by natural and Native American
disturbance and thrive only where land use accidentally provides these. The
dominating dogma over the past 50 to 70 years has held that you needed to
?farm? for bobwhites. Cropped farm land is a very poor surrogate for this bird.
Finally, and I apologize for making this so long, in case you are wondering,
there is yet any evidence that bobwhites can be restored by trap and transfer
where they no longer exist. You can supplement areas with existing populations
if you wish, and this works, but there is little need to do this. If no
bobwhites are there, you have to make is possible for already existing birds to
colonize on their own. That means you have to improve habitat immediately
adjacent to areas that already have bobwhite populations. There are many more
details to all of this but will leave it at this. Ask any questions you like
and I will have answers if answers are known. Also, we desperately need to fund
contemporary research on this bird.
Roger D. Applegate
Small Game Coordinator
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency
Ellington Agricultural Center
PO Box 40747
Nashville, TN 37204
PH: 615/781-6616
FAX: 615/781-6654
Email: roger.applegate@xxxxxxxxxxx
UPS Address: 440 Hogan Road
Nashville, TN 37220
FedEx Address: 5107 Edmonson Pike
Nashville, TN 37211
>>> 10/12/11 11:14 AM >>>
Thank you, Bill, for this insightful Breeding Bird Survey analysis. It is
apparent that we ALL need to put our heads together, not as separate
organizations, but all conservation groups as one community, to see what in
addition to current efforts can be done to help the bobwhite quail in our
state, and in our country. Shouldn't the bobwhite quail be listed as endangered
in Tennessee/in the USA?
Approximately nine years ago, I heard Ralph Dimmick, a biologist and expert on
the bobwhite quail, speak at the sandhill crane festival at Birchwood. His
words impressed me at that time, and the concern he raised for this species has
remained with me. He showed graphs and described a community ecology that
predicted the decline that is reported in Bill's analysis below. He likened the
bobwhite quail and its breeding community to the passenger pigeon whose
extinction could not be predicted with numbers ecology. The extinction of the
passenger pigeon happened for many reasons, but one of the chief reasons was,
it declined below the community size required for breeding.
Do we know the numbers of bobwhites that must exist in a community inorder for
breeding to occur? It is well known, that neither the wildness of this species
nor its community ecology can be taught by humans. There will be no
reintroduction of this bird if it's wild community ecology is lost. They become
like domestic chickens, without defense against predation. Below, I have pasted
(not sure that's allowed on the listserve) Bill Pulliam's graph and analysis of
the breeding bird surveys for bobwhite quail.
In the alternative, please also visit the link to Bill's website to see his
entire report. It is very interesting. Bobwhites are found in the group
"waterfowl to herons".
http://bbill.blogspot.com/2011/09/breeding-bird-survey-in-
tennessee-45.html
Northern Bobwhite
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o9xl_D2Klv4/ToP4gyKzlqI/AAAAAAAAAZ4/rlbDTU4rXrk/s1600/NorthernBobwhite.png35
year change: -26.00 (-78%) ± 2.11
This is one of the most disturbing graphs that came out of this project. Not
only has this formerly abundant bird shown a drastic decline, the drop appears
to be linear (possibly even accelerating). Projecting this line forward shows a
Bobwhite that has been effectively extirpated from Tennessee in 2014 -- just
three years away. If you look at the change from 1966 to 2010 (rather than the
difference in the 10-year averages), the decline is nearly 90%. In the 1960s
this was one of the most abundant species on Tennessee BBS routes; in recent
years it is has not been detected at all on many of them.
Vickie Henderson
Knoxville, TN
Knox County
In a message dated 10/11/2011 11:31:56 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
littlezz@xxxxxxxxx writes:
I have done some examinations and analyses of the 45 years of
Breeding Bird Survey data for Tennessee (1966 through 2010) and
posted some of the results on my blog:
http://bbill.blogspot.com/2011/09/breeding-bird-survey-in-
tennessee-45.html
Though some species have shown major declines since the BBS began in
1966, and one (Bewick's Wren) has been all but extirpated, overall
the story is quite positive. Most species have increased during this
time, with a median change of +66%. Raptors and forest birds have
fared the best overall. Non-neotropical migrant forest species have
on average tripled in abundance; raptors have shown a median increase
of nearly 8-fold! Even the beleaguered neotropical migrants have for
the most part held steady or increased.
Bill Pulliam
Hohenwald TN
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