State wildlife agency biologists and land managers from 15 states and partners will gather virtually 10 a.m.-noon and 1-3 p.m. Sept. 3 for training on the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative’s (NBCI) Coordinated Implementation Program, or CIP.
CIP is a science-based approach to bobwhite habitat with consistent habitat and bird monitoring requirements across the range, as well as reference or control areas for comparison purposes. The program is aimed at demonstrating bobwhite populations can be recovered when the proper amount and arrangement of habitat are provided within a landscape-scale focal area and conclusively proving that habitat (or lack of it) is the fundamental cause of long-term bobwhite quail decline. There are currently 163,748 acres in 26 focal areas across 20 of NBCI’s 25 states.
Seminar topics will include how to collect and enter habitat management data, future plans for entry of hunting data, an upcoming mobile application for habitat monitoring data collection, a discussion of other online tools states might like to have developed for investigating their CIP habitat and bird monitoring data, and a discussion of potential revisions to NBCI 2.0, a detailed breakdown of issues affecting bobwhite populations in the NBCI states, corrective actions needed, and an analysis of the individual 25 states for bobwhite habitat potential in categories of high, medium, low and non-existent.
States participating in the training include Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
About NBCI
Headquartered at the University of Tennessee’s Institute of Agriculture/Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, NBCI is a science and habitat-based initiative of the National Bobwhite Technical Committee (NBTC) to elevate bobwhite quail recovery from an individual state-by-state proposition to a coordinated, range-wide leadership endeavor to restore wild bobwhites on a landscape scale. The committee is comprised of representatives of 25 state wildlife agencies, various academic research institutions and private conservation organizations. Support for NBCI is provided by the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Program, 25 state wildlife agencies, the Joe Crafton Family Endowment for Quail Initiatives, the University of Tennessee, Roundstone Native Seed, and Lotek. Media Contact: John Doty, jdoty3@utk.edu
