# Help with Bobwhite Quail Habitat



## Big Daddy (Apr 6, 2004)

LANDOWNERS IN OHIO CAN HELP BOBWHITE QUAIL 

POPULATIONS INCREASE IN THE BUCKEYE STATE 

Program helps increase disappearing habitats 



AKRON, OH  Throughout their range, bobwhite quail populations have declined from an estimated 59-million birds in 1980 to about 20-million in 1999, but the Conservation Reserve Program Northern Bobwhite Quail Habitat Initiative encourages landowners to help reverse this trend, according the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Wildlife. The United States Department of Agricultures (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) and the ODNR Division of Wildlife are working with landowners to increase disappearing habitat for quail in Ohio. 

Quail habitats are disappearing due to urbanization, loss of native grasslands, intensive agriculture, and a transitioning of once grassy fields into forests, said Dan McMillen, private lands biologist for northeastern Ohio Division of Wildlife. While not a quail stocking program, the Northern Bobwhite Quail Habitat Initiative is designed to enroll buffer areas around agricultural fields and encourage plantings of native warm-season grasses, legumes, forbs, and shrubs, creating habitat for upland birds, focusing on pheasant and quail. The Northern Bobwhite Quail Habitat Initiative requires that to be eligible, for enrollment, the property must have been cropped at least four out of six years between 1996 and 2001. Farmers can help wildlife while benefiting from annual incentive payments for the length of a ten-year contract. 

This program is intended to create 250,000 acres of habitat in 35 states and Ohio has been allocated 14,200 of the total. Counties in northeast Ohio that are eligible for landowner sign up include the following: Ashtabula, Ashland, Carroll, Geauga, Holmes, Lake, Lorain, Stark, and Tuscarawas. Interested landowners may contact their local county FSA (www.fsa.usda.gov) or District Three Division of Wildlife at (330) 644-2293.


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## Guest (Aug 5, 2006)

We have about 17 acres in CRP. A few years ago we had a really nice covey but havent saw them since. This is a real nice program guys and if you get with your local Pheasants Forever Chapter they will work with you and help you establish food plots also on a cost share program. This program also benifits many other types of wildlife. So all you farmers on here should really look into this becasue they do pay you per acre. Also remember if you want more upland game to do your part to help thin out the feral cats. They are the number one predator of small uplands game and birds and kill thousands if not millions every year.


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## vinnystatechamp (Jun 20, 2006)

The only thing bad about food plots is that game birds aren't the only species that know where the plots are. Predators eventually catch on and they will watch that plot day in and day out. Unless you have no predators on your land (which is highly unlikely) then food plots aren't always the best. I'm not putting the idea down. I'm a very dedicated bird hunter along with everyone else, but I'm just saying that you'll have more predators around a set up food plot.


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