Kansas City Quail Unlimited...Chairman's News Letter Jan. 2008


Fellow Outdoor Enthusiasts and Conservationists,

 I want to thank each of you for your generous donations of time and resources to support Kansas City Quail Unlimited (KCQU) and our primary purpose: “Promoting the conservation, preservation, management, habitat development, and other activities relating to the various species of quail, upland birds, and other wildlife.” Through your support we are able to organize and operate our chapter in our efforts to “Bring Back Bob”.

As this is my first Chairman’s news letter I would like to introduce you to our 2008 Officers and Board of Directors (their direct contact information is available on our web site at www.KCQU.com):

Chairman: Mark Walker, I’ll also be serving as our “Fundraising Chairman”

Vice Chairman: Bill Yarberry who will be serving as our “Habitat Chairman”

Treasurer: Jess Cole will be serving as the “Scholarship Chairman”

Secretary: Billie Ragner

Board of Directors:

Dan Nix (Past Chairman)

John Cerda

David Byl

Bill Goodman

Randy Ritter

Murray Walker

Mickey Cruse

Harold Green (our Web Host)

During our first board meeting of January 9^th, we enacted several programs and initiatives to improve communications, build member participation and grow memberships in 2008:

·         Monthly Meetings - we will hold monthly open membership meetings the third Tuesday of each month at 6:30 PM. They will be held at the Marriott in OPKS unless notified differently.  Our next meeting is February 19^th. We will post minutes after each meeting on the web site and I will provide agendas to the attendees at the meetings.

·         Committees: we are looking for member volunteers to staff each committee with active participants. Each committee will meet routinely before or after the general membership committee and as otherwise planned. Each committee chairman will give an update during the open membership meeting. Please contact the committee chairman to volunteer:

§         Habitat – Bill Yarberry

§         Education and Youth – Jess Cole

§         Fundraising and Membership – Mark Walker

·         Banquet Committee

o        Chairman – Mark Walker acting

o        Promotions and Publicity

o        Arrangements: Event Planning, Coordination and records

o        Treasurer: budgeting, financial records and accounting

o        Auction and Prizes

§         Live Auction

§         Silent Auction

§         Raffle

o        Sponsor and Membership

o        Vendors and displays

·         Special Events – Chairman TBD (contact Mark Walker)

§         Sponsor Committee – Chairman TBD (contact Mark Walker)

·         Habitat – Bill Yarberry was appointed as Habitat Chairman to establish recommendations and budgeting requests for enhancing our overall habitat program as relates to education and awareness, project selection and funding and member participation.

·         Fundraising and Membership – I will be acting as the Fundraising Chairman and Banquet Chairman for 2008. We approved the date of September 15^th at the Marriott in Overland Park to host this year’s Fund Raising Banquet.  In addition to the banquet we will be planning other opportunities to hold additional membership and fundraising events.

·         Open Book Financials and Budgeting– The board will be developing an overall budget for 2008 as relates to our available sources and uses of funds. The budget will be thorough in addressing our ongoing costs of operation, promotion of special events and uses for specific activities such as habitat grants, national convention, education and youth activities. We have consolidated all of our current resources into a single account and will make periodic statements of financials at each board meeting and available to members upon request.  All expenses must be board approved prior to commitments being made. We are currently working on the overall 2008 budget and the 2008 Banquet Budget and will have both for review at next month’s meeting.

·         Education and Youth: it was suggested and left for future discussion to realign our Youth Committee into an Education Committee with responsibility for planning, budgeting and execution of all related events: grants, scholarships, and habitat and fun shoot programs. We’ll be discussing this more fully at next month’s meeting.

·         Web Site and Usage: We are going go move quickly on updating and maintaining our web site to include information regarding upcoming events, habitat initiatives and projects, fundraising programs and educational activities. We discussed possible use of advertising and development of sponsor activities to be another means of income to the chapter. More at the next meeting.

·         Mailings: We wish to move the organization to routine use of email in order to save monies used for on ground mailings; however, we will continue to send postage mail routinely as not all of our members have access to email or our web site. Our first mailing will go out in early March and be followed up with a summer mailing prior to the Banquet and a subsequent mailing during the fall. If special events dictate we will determine if additional mailings are required.

·         Sponsors: We’ll be discussing the Sponsor Committee at next month’s meeting. During the Banquet last year our Sponsor memberships increased from 25 to 50! We want to continue to create programs to keep these valuable members active in our chapter.

·         Upcoming Events: Please come out and join us on Conservation night as our National Corporate Sponsor “Bass Pro Shops” opens its newest location in Independence, MO at 6:30 the evening of February 20^th. Paul Marsh from the Olathe Store and Amy Acock from the Independence store (BPS Marketing Mangers) have been very generous in their giving of time, resources and products to support our fundraising and membership drive efforts. Western Farm Show at Kemper on February 22, 23, 24^th.

The Officers and Board of Directors look forward to serving your interests in 2008 to “Bring Back Bob.” I look forward with excitement and trepidation to the work ahead, but foresee great success in our efforts to raise funds, enact new habitat projects and grow memberships. I’m looking forward to working with Bill and his efforts of enhanced habitat support and most importantly making a difference to the survival and growth of my favorite upland species - the Northern Bobwhite Quail!

How you can make a difference!

Get informed. Come to our open meetings. Donate your ideas, time and energy to our cause.

Be involved. Join one of our committees and participate in a project or event. Just call any officer or board member to volunteer.

Grow the membership: Ask a friend to join.  Network with other outdoor enthusiasts.

Though the camaraderie we share in our love of the outdoors – we can work together to help make KCQU a great contributor in “Bringing Back Bob”!

Mark Walker

(Following informational exerts were borrowed from the QU.Org website and I would appreciate you taking the time to read them)

Where have the quail gone?

It’s hardly news to any of us that bobwhite numbers have been in steady decline for many years. And until recently I was not fully aware of the enormity or severity of this decline. I grew up in rural north central Missouri and have routinely hunted bobwhite quail every season since 1969 with varying degrees of success. I have paid little attention to the gradual, yet vast scale of change to the overall landscape of the county and its impact upon our favorite upland bird. In a recent article from “Sporting Classics” Magazine written by Tom Davis titled” Our Greatest Wildlife Tragedy” it struck home with me how far and fast the bobwhite quail has declined in the past 40 years. Tom references a 2007 “National Audubon Society Report – Common Birds in Decline” – an accounting of the twenty common North American species whose numbers have dropped most since 1967.

Number “1” on the list – you guessed it: the Northern Bobwhite Quail. They have gone from an estimated population of 31 Million in 1967 to 5.5 million today.

A loss of 25,500,000 birds or a decline of 82%.

Everyone has their own hypothesis, but the plain and simple truth is that quail populations are directly related to habitat or the lack of habitat, especially on a landscape (regional) scale. The reasons for declining populations of quail and other grassland species generally are not understood by the public and by many landowners. They see populations of species like wild turkeys and white-tailed deer at all time highs.

There is no mystery to the declining populations of quail and other early successional species; it is in direct correlation with the loss of their habitat. There are multitudes of reasons for the losses, many of which are a result of the changing landscape from early colonial days to our modern society. The future of quail depends on the creation or maintenance of suitable habitat on private and public lands.

Quail use a variety of habitat types, depending primarily on the early and mid-stages of plant succession. An early successional plant community is created as a result of area that has been recently disturbed. It contains grasses and legumes, a wide variety of broadleaf plants, annual weeds and brushy cover, all closely interspersed across the landscape. Early successional species have much more specific habitat requirements than originally thought, and their populations are more sensitive to changes.

To be successful, we need to continually increase awareness and landowner education in order to effectively influence management efforts.

It is the natural scheme to progress from bare ground to forest in an orderly and progressive manner. The job of maintaining early successional habitats or any other habitat is really against nature's way. It is similar to the constant battle that our settlers had in maintaining their grasslands and in clearing forests for their fields. Favorable quail habitats were well represented on family farms throughout the country in the 1930s through 50s. The early century farming practices created a patchwork effect across the countryside that was beneficial to quail and other small game species. The annual disturbances of fields by farming, the frequent use of fire, and the somewhat inefficient methods that left weeds and fencerows along the edges and waste grain in the fields created ideal habitat conditions, and quail flourished in those communities.

 As America moved into the Baby Boom Generation subsequent to WWII, we progressed from an agricultural society into an industrial nation. Many family farms were sold or abandoned as families moved to town. More recently a lot of family farms have been combined with other farms to develop larger and/or corporate farms. In these cases, smaller fields were combined and their fence row borders eliminated to make room for larger and more efficient equipment. The loss of the family farms and fencerows with their benefits was probably one of the most detrimental losses for quail. The continued demise of the small subsistence farms and urban sprawl has contributed to a change in the overall landscape of the country.

Habitat changes are sometimes subtle. Many landowners claim that their farms have not changed in 20 years; however, from the quail perspective, they have had dramatic changes. For instance, some owners claim that a fencerow between fields is still there. Even though the overall location may be the same, if no cutbacks have been made to the fencerow, there have been dramatic changes. What used to be a low growing, relatively narrow strip with weedy edges and an overhead canopy has now turned into a wide sprawling tree row with no ground cover and very little wildlife benefit. Other vegetative and ecological changes take place and sometimes go unnoticed.

Despite a growing awareness of the importance of preserving and improving upland game habitat, more and more quail habitat is lost each year.

The decline of quail populations is directly related to the loss of quality habitat. Biologists (and our QU Regional Directors) know how to manage for quail—it is not rocket science. In most cases, if you build it, they will come.

KCQU and the states of Kansas and Missouri and other federal agencies have programs to help landowners manage wildlife on their properties and to address the declining habitat conditions.  Our KCQU chapter is dedicated to the funding, educating and support of these habitat initiatives for private and public lands in an effort to “Bring Back Bob”. As we move forward in 2008 we will be presenting to the membership our Habitat program recommendations and objectives and focus more of our energy and resources into this area of concern.

Help us maintain our hunting heritage and prevent the Northern Bobwhite Quail from becoming “Recreationally Extinct” by becoming a committee volunteer and get involved now!

I’m looking forward to seeing you at next month’s meeting.

Mark Walker