The National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI) has hired a certified wildlife biologist from Texas, Kyle A. Brazil, as its new agriculture policy coordinator based in Washington, D.C.
Brazil’s job is to be a voice in the Beltway for wild quail to help NBCI and allies effect national agriculture policy that is more favorable to wildlife and wildlife habitat on private agricultural lands.
Brazil previously worked as the quail & grasslands birds program leader for Audubon Texas, where among his many responsibilities was the implementation of the Texas Quail Conservation Initiative and the NBCI with other partners in the state. He also served stints with Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) as a regulatory wildlife biologist, with the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M as a graduate research assistant (studying the relationship of habitat structure and bobwhite productivity at the landscape scale in south Texas) and as coordinator of the South Texas Quail Associates Program, and with the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation as a research technician and research intern.
Brazil also served on the TPWD’s Upland Game Bird Advisory Council, the USDA/NRCS Texas State Technical Advisory Committee and as a member of the Oaks & Prairies Joint Venture technical committee. He earned a BS in wildlife & fisheries ecology from Oklahoma State in 2002 and an MS in range and wildlife management from Texas A&M, Kingsville, in 2006.
NBCI is a project of the National Bobwhite Technical Committee (NBTC) to elevate bobwhite quail recovery from an individual state-by-state proposition to a range-wide, policy-level leadership endeavor. The committee is comprised of representatives of state fish and wildlife agencies, academic research institutions and non-governmental conservation organizations. Headquartered at the University of Tennessee, NBCI is funded by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, two dozen state wildlife management agencies, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and Southern Company. For more information, please visit www.bringbackbobwhites.org
