Bobwhite quail returns to Pennsylvania
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The bobwhite quail, which officially hasn't been in Pennsylvania for nearly a decade, is coming back home.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission released 50 bobwhite quail at Letterkenny Army Depot in Franklin County on Tuesday, bringing the total number of bobwhites at the site to 76, with one more release to go.
Pennsylvania had bobwhite quail in all 67 counties in the mid-1800s, back when more farmland covered the state. The Game Commission officially declared them extirpated, or gone from within state borders, after surveys in 2013 and 2014, though it was likely they were gone even earlier.
The Game Commission called the bobwhite quail a "boom-and-bust type of species." They're "incredibly productive breeders," but they have short lifespans and "are prone to dramatic population swings."
After releasing the birds, the Pennsylvania Game Commission will give them some help, with conservationists continuing to remake and sustain a suitable habitat at Letterkenny as outlined in a quail management plan that stretches through 2030.
"This is an exciting time, the next chapter in a story of wildlife restoration," said Game Commission Executive Director Bryan Burhans in a news release. "It's difficult – not impossible, but difficult – to take any species that's disappeared and bring it back again.
"But Pennsylvania has a proud history of doing just that. White-tailed deer, elk, bald eagles, peregrine falcons, all were gone of nearly so from our borders and now are thriving across Pennsylvania. With today's release, maybe, just maybe, bobwhites are on the same path."