Early Successional Habitat Private Lands Biologists

Virginia’s Quail Recovery Initiative (QRI) began in 2009 in an effort to restore northern bobwhite quail populations to their native range in the Commonwealth. Under a partnership between the Conservation Management Institute at Virginia Tech, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, five Private Lands Wildlife Biologist positions were created to put the QRI into motion. 

Six Quail Priority Areas were created throughout the state to focus our efforts of developing quail habitat patches on the landscape. By stitching together patches of habitat (a “quail quilt,” if you will), we hope to bring back the “prince of game birds” in the Old Dominion—so that once-familiar “bob-WHITE!” whistle will be familiar once again for springs to come.

The Bobwhite Bulletin is one of the QRI's outreach mechanisms aimed at informing folks on our progress, quail ecology, and success stories.