Photo By Joshua Shinn | 240319-A-JT832-1071 CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. Members of Letterkenny Army Depot and the...... read more read more
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. – On March 19, 2024, employees from Letterkenny Army Depot’s Environmental Management Division, alongside the Pennsylvania Game Commission, released 50 northern bobwhite quail in an unpopulated region of the installation, totaling 76 in the past few weeks.
Northern bobwhite quail are an indigenous upland bird species that became locally extinct in Pennsylvania. Participants across the depot, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, academia and other non-governmental organizations traveled to the release site to witness and document the event.
“There are many organizations that are interested in the conservation and restoration of the native bird species,” said Craig Kindlin, EMD chief, LEAD. “They want to see active management, the improvement of habitat and the reintroduction of a species that was essentially winked out.”
The northern bobwhite, known for its distinctive call that had attributed to its name, once flourished in the local area and is often remembered and endeared by previous generations of rural agricultural communities, local ornithologists and bird-watching enthusiasts. However, as data records suggest, the population of the bird species regressed to local extinction, or extirpation, in the late 1990s across the state of Pennsylvania due to habitat loss.
Early successional stages of vegetation, consisting of tall native grasses, meadows and brush, are prime habitable conditions for the bobwhite. However, advances in agricultural production, including the use of herbicides, stripped the landscape of necessary vegetation for quail to survive.
“The onset of herbicides was used to control weeds, which can be defined as any plant that is not where it is supposed to be,” Kindlin stated. “However, a lot of the time, those weeds were productive plants that quail, songbirds and other species used to feed on and thrive.”
In 2012, LEAD’s EMD, the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revised the installation’s Integrated Natural Resources Management Plan, which outlines goals needed to execute the conservation and rehabilitation of natural resources and wildlife as directed by the Sikes Act. This federal law enables the Department of Defense installations to utilize natural resources for military operations if specific measures are in place to ensure the sustainability and conservation of raw materials, fauna and flora.
During the revisions, Kindlin, then the natural resources manager at LEAD, identified the reintroduction of the bobwhite, which had been extirpated for over 15 years, as a possible management goal after initial land assessments with Pennsylvania Game Commission.
“As one of the management goals, I listed the bobwhite quail for potential reintroduction as an objective, not knowing that four to five years from then, we would be talking about the restoration of that species,” Kindlin said.
In 2016, the Pennsylvania Game Commission assessed possible sites for the quail reintroduction across Pennsylvania. LEAD’s Natural Resources Office, a branch of the Environmental Division, hosted the Game Commission later that year to present potential sites across the Letterkenny installation for the bobwhite’s reintroduction.
Matt Miller, natural resources manager, LEAD, explained, “They (the Pennsylvania Game Commission) made a model for the entire state looking at open grassland habitat that was available. Franklin and Cumberland counties – or south-central (Pennsylvania) – had the best spot.”
LEAD’s Natural Resources Office and the Pennsylvania Game Commission agreed that the Letterkenny installation served the most suitable location for the quail population, and in 2017, they signed a 10-year memorandum of agreement, or MOA, certifying their partnership to move forward with the bobwhite reintroduction.
Following the signing of the MOA in 2017, the Natural Resources Office began various measures to alter the landscape, making it more conducive for the bobwhite. This seven-year-long process began with timber harvesting, tractor disking and forestry mulching, which would provide sufficient land and fuel for future prescribed fire operations.
Prescribed fire, or controlled burns, is a common forestry practice to maintain the health of a local ecosystem. In the case of the quail reintroduction, the Natural Resources Office burned thousands of acres to reset the focus area to an early successional stage to enable the growth of particular flora, such as common ragweed, required by the bird species to survive.
After years of preparation, the Natural Resources Office started to plan the official release of the bobwhite.
“It’s been in the works for at least the past couple of years,” Miller said. “During our discussions, we wanted to do an official event as we were introducing a native species back to its original habitat.”
The Pennsylvania Game Commission acquired wild bobwhite from various locations leading up to the release. Tall Timbers, an environmental research program in Florida, provided approximately half the nearly 100 birds. Army environmental personnel, the Pennsylvania Game Commission and other state wildlife agencies relocated the remaining quail, including 26 released weeks before the official event, from Fort Barfoot and Fort Knox, located in Virginia and Kentucky, respectively.
By procuring the wild quail from different states, the Natural Resources Office and the Pennsylvania Game Commission hope to increase the genetic diversity of the reintroduced bobwhite population and gather more data.
Kindlin explained, “They (the Pennsylvania Game Commission) will be taking genetic samples (in the form of blood and feathers) from the released birds’ offspring this fall to see how they are doing. Are they intermixing? What are the different characteristics of the birds that are surviving and breeding? Can birds from Virginia survive in the habitat better than the birds from Florida or Kentucky, or does the location we procured them from not make a difference at all?”
The Natural Resources Office and the Pennsylvania Game Commission will continue to monitor and preserve the reintroduced bobwhite population by geo-tracking their location and ensuring the habitat remains conducive to the quails’ survival.
“Having these quail marked and knowing what they are utilizing – we are going to key on that and see what areas are being burned on a two-year rotation versus a three- or four-year rotation and change our habitat management plan based on that,” Miller said.
With the long-awaited release of the northern bobwhite now ending, the environmental management team is excited for the next stage of the species’ preservation.
“We have been working at it for seven years, and I am very excited to transition to the next phase of hopefully seeing these birds thrive and continuing with the efforts of ensuring that,” Kindlin said. “This not only shows the community that Letterkenny is committed to natural resources conservation, but also natural resources stewardship.”
Letterkenny Army Depot is the Army’s premier professional organic maintenance facility that provides overhaul, repair and modifications for tactical missile air defense and space systems, power generation equipment and various military vehicles, support systems and protection programs. LEAD is a subordinate of U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command and is the Air and Missile Defense and Long-Range Precision Fires depot, supporting systems for the Department of Defense, foreign partners and industry. Letterkenny Army Depot was established in 1942 and is a government-owned and -operated industrial installation located in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
For more information about LEAD, visit https://www.letterkenny.army.mil/
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| Date Taken: | 03.20.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 03.20.2024 13:23 |
| Story ID: | 466645 |
| Location: | CHAMBERSBURG, PA, US |
| Web Views: | 481 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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