State program looking to land owners for help
Source: Albany Herald, by Barbara Rivera Holmes
September 04, 2007
ALBANY — Protecting and re-establishing quail environment and other natural habitats has many benefits, an expert says, but enhancing the community’s quality of life is the “simplest” reason why people should work toward that goal.
“It’s not just about quail; it’s about ecosystems, soil erosion control,” said Reggie Thackston, Private Lands Program manager for the state Department of Natural Resources.
Of Georgia’s 37 million acres, just 1.3 percent are state-owned, Thackston said, and 1.7 percent is held by the federal government. As such, he said, it’s up to private landowners to assure that future Georgians can experience what the state offers residents today.
Through DNR’s Private Lands Program, Thackston works to re-establish habitats for Bob White quail — Georgia’s game bird — and longleaf pines, among the program’s four initiatives.
Longleaf numbers are drastically down, with a bit more than 600,000 remaining acres of the estimated 23 million acres at settlement, he said. Without the conservation, he said, the figure had dipped below 500,000 acres.
Through the Conservation Reserve Program, a Farm Bill program administered by states, 125,000 acres of longleaf pines have been established, Thackston said. About 180,000 total acres have been allocated for restoration, he said.
Since the 1920s, Bob White populations also have been on the decline.
“We used to have seas of habitat,” Thackston told Albany Rotarians Thursday. “Now, we have islands, except for Southwest Georgia and north Florida.”
In 1962, Thackston’s figures show, the quail season brought out 135,000 hunters and yielded 4 million quail. In 2005, by comparison, there were 22,850 hunters and a harvest of 622,123 quail.
The environmental implications aside, “We’re losing tens of millions of dollars per year due to that loss of quail,” Thackston said.
With private investors holding 97 percent of the state’s land, the National Bob White Quail Initiative aims its efforts at that group.
In Georgia, the initiative, which works in 35 states, has a goal of returning to 1980s density — 4 million acres and 212,000 quail coveys.
But, “not all land can be reimplemented,” Thackston said.
Ideal quail land and practices includes dry-land borders, irrigated field borders, hedgerow renovation, filter strips, field corners and fallow patches and conservation tillage.
Managed pine forest burns are “probably the single greatest habitat boost for quail,” he said.
Thackston’s program is voluntary, landowner driven, provides free technical assistance and sometimes financial assistance, he said.
“Only 24 percent of people surveyed would have implemented BQI (Bobwhite Quail Initiative) without financial incentives,” he said of department data.
For details, visit the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Division Web site at www.georgiawildlife.dnr.state.ga.us.
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