April 04, 2024
Public domain/Steve Maslowski/USFWS
Bobwhite quails, which favor farmland for its food and nesting cover, used to live in all 67 counties of Pennsylvania. Biologists believe they disappeared in the late 1990s or early 2000s.
The bobwhite quail used to roam all 67 counties of Pennsylvania, but the species disappeared from the state as land development drove them across the border. Now, the bird has finally come home to roost — with a little help from state conservationists.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission has been reintroducing the bobwhite quail, known for its distinctive whistle, to the Letterkenny Army Depot over the last few weeks. On March 19, the commission announced it had successfully released 50 bobwhite quails on the Franklin County grounds, where they joined 26 birds from a previous drop. Since then, it has added 11 more, bringing the total population up to 87.
Travis Lau, an information officer for the game commission, said Thursday that there are no other planned releases for the year. The game commission will assess how many more bobwhite quails should be added in 2025.
This reintroduction has been 12 years in the making. The game commission drew up a management plan for the bobwhite quail in 2011, aiming to first determine how many birds were left in the state. Surveys conducted in 2013 and 2014 concluded that the bobwhite quail was officially extirpated from Pennsylvania, though biologists believe they disappeared in the late 1990s or early 2000s.
The game commission has attributed the loss to shrinking farmland, one of the bird's preferred habitats. According to federal data, farms covered 61% of Pennsylvania's total land mass in 1920. As of 2022, they take up just 25%. Experts also believe that harsh winters and advancing agricultural technology drove the bobwhite quail out of state.
As the management plan progressed, the game commission identified Letterkenny Army Depot, an enormous site specializing in air and missile defense modernization, as a possible habitat for reintroduction. The U.S. Army ceded roughly 2,700 acres of the 18,000-acre property for a "bobwhite quail focus area," which the game commission developed starting in 2017. Experts visited the site as it was prepared for the birds, and in 2023, the National Bobwhite and Grasslands Initiative’s technical committee declared the space suitable for the quails.
MORE: To curtail fare evasion, SEPTA is testing taller gates at 69th Street Transportation Center
The birds were trapped and relocated from three different locations, two of them were also military sites. Fort Knox in Kentucky supplied 15 of the bobwhite quails and Fort Barfoot in Virginia another 22. The remaining 50 came from Tall Timbers, a land trust in Florida.
Though Lau said the birds will be essentially "left on their own" to acclimate and, hopefully, mate, the game commission has monitoring plans in place. Every bobwhite quail at Letterkenny is tagged with a leg band, and some with radio collars. Small electronic devices planted across the property will help two University of Delaware graduate students track and study the birds' patterns and hardiness this summer. The game commission hopes the bobwhite quail will not only flourish at Letterkenny, but eventually venture out into nearby countrysides.
Follow Kristin & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @kristin_hunt
| @thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice
Have a news tip? Let us know.
