The Northern bobwhite quail; photo courtesy of Wikimedia

The United States Department of Agriculture is offering southern Iowa landowners a first-in-the-nation opportunity to improve habitat conditions for bobwhite quail. Under the umbrella of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the USDA is offering a project called Early Successional Quail Habitat. The venture is a collaboration between the USDA and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to give landowners incentive to enroll portions of their land into helping create the quail habitat. There will be 40,000 CRP acres available through the project, which seeks to provide quality brood rearing habitat, native vegetation for nesting habitat, wildlife food plots, and allows for the establishment of shrubs and tree edge feathering to provide winter covey headquarters.

The 35 counties in southern Iowa, including all of the KCII listening area, historically has the strongest quail populations, according to the USDA. In order to qualify for the program, landowners must enroll at least five acres; at least 25 percent of the land enrolled must be managed as early successional habitat, and the remainder must be managed as nesting cover, with the option to include winter covey headquarters or food plots; and managed harvesting for hay and biomass, as well as routine grazing, are not allowed on the land. In addition to helping the quail population, the USDA believes the habitat program will help other grassland bird species and pollinators. While the bobwhite quail is not currently endangered, it is suffering from habitat loss in the United States. The DNR predicts if nothing is done, they will be placed on the endangered species list within a few years.