A County-Based Northern Bobwhite Habitat Prioritization Model for Kentucky

Planning the management of northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) habitat at a statewide-scale is daunting. Native grassland restoration is difficult to manage in Kentucky because . 99% of the Commonwealth’s original grassland area has been lost to agriculture, succession, and development. We created a county prioritization model designed to target areas of grasslands and landowners likely to participate in conservation programs. Our goal was to identify 10% of the state as high priority for bobwhite habitat restoration. We created an east and west model divided by the Appalachian Mountains. The west model was designed to target production-oriented operators farming marginal lands, whereas the east model targeted reclaimed minelands. We used agricultural, landcover, and staff data to build county prioritization models in 2006 and 2011. The models targeted 16.6% and 17.6% of the state in 2006 and 2011, respectively. However, if areas of large, contiguous blocks of forests were excluded, the area total was much closer to 10%. Fifty percent of the high priority counties changed in the west model, and 33% of the counties in the east model changed over 5 years. Implementing a county prioritization model in conjunction with a finer-scale, biological targeted approach could focus conservation efforts with greater potential for success, but the models should be reconstructed at 5- to 10-year intervals to account for changes in conservation delivery potential. A modification of our technique may serve to validate or as an alternative to improve National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative 2.0

Results from Kentucky’s 10-year Bobwhite Recovery Plan

The northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; hereafter, bobwhite) has experienced a precipitous population decline through almost all its historical range over the last 6 decades. We initiated a 10-year restoration plan in Kentucky, USA in 2008 and reported on it through 3 published “Road to Recovery” reports along with 30 peer-reviewed articles and abstracts, 2 technical documents, 7 theses or dissertations, and 11 popular literature pieces. Seven Quail Focus Areas were selected across the state based on site personnel, geographic position (east to west), and land ownership (e.g., private, public, state, federal) for monitoring and habitat management. The focus areas averaged 11,895 acres and area managed for quail on an annual basis ranged from 9% to 42%. Management took the form of herbicide applications, disking, fire, planting, grazing, control of woody vegetation, and mowing. Hierarchical distance sampling models using time-of-removal information to inform detection processes were used to assess bobwhite density on each focus area. Models were based on spring breeding bird point counts in which a suite of grassland songbirds were recorded and fall covey counts in which only bobwhite were recorded. Roadside surveys (direct observation) and hunter harvest information were also used for statewide comparisons of focus areas and statewide trends. Across all years and focus areas a 40% increase in the quail population was observed in 20 years (38%) of the possible 53 years of survey data. Stable to increasing trends were also observed in focal area populations of dickcissel (Spiza americana), eastern meadowlark (Sturnella magna), eastern kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus), field sparrow (Spizella pusilla), prairie warbler (Setophaga discolor), and Bell’s vireo (Vireo bellii). A focus on habitat management and associated monitoring on relatively small (\u3c20,000 acres) areas was shown to be successful on an individual area, as determined by increases in bird numbers across years and challenges completed in the Quail Plan but did not result in an observed increase in statewide quail indices. Future quail restoration plans in Kentucky should be directed more toward open production land, which is made up of 6 million acres of pastureland, hay land, row crop agriculture, reverting fields, reclaimed mineland, and grasslands. This work will be completed by utilizing working lands, such as field borders in row crop systems and grazing native warm-season grasses in pasture or hay systems, for wildlife activities. Monitoring systems on these production lands will be in the breeding season only and autonomous recording devices will be used in lieu of human observers to cover the greater area of open landscape

Temperature Assessment on a Reclaimed Surface Mine During Northern Bobwhite Breeding Season: Considerations for Habitat Management

Ground-level air temperatures were assessed within 4 distinct habitat areas on a managed reclaimed surface mine at Peabody Wildlife Management Area, Kentucky, 26 June–17 July 2015, during the northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) brood season. Habitat consisted of disked and nondisked areas of native grass and an invasive species, sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata). Disked areas offered more open space for bobwhite mobility and experienced higher average temperatures than nondisked sites. Although statistically significant, differences in air temperature between disked and nondisked areas were likely too small to have practical implications for bobwhite habitat management in Kentucky under current climatic conditions. This will likely change in the future as the regional climate warms and periods of excessive heat are more likely to occur. Consequently, managers may want to consider microclimate when making management decisions