On May 30, 2024, the Federal Drug Administration, after seven years of study, approved a medicated feed for wild quail called QuailGuard, developed to eliminate the eye-worm parasite found in about 80 percent of Texas wild bobwhite quail.

As it turns out, the funding for QuailGuard came largely from a low-profile, Dallas-based non-profit called the Quail Coalition. Never heard of it? Not surprising since the expanding organization is founded on the model of channeling nearly 100 percent of the money raised by member volunteers directly into research rather than marketing, media relations or trinkets. 

The Quail Coalition awarding $590,000 to the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch in Texas.

The formation of the Quail Coalition in 2009 was revolutionary. It started with a bunch of Texas quail hunters who shut down the state chapters of the now-defunct Quail Unlimited. They believed that spending 40 percent of the money they raised on administrative costs by the national headquarters was not in the interest of local habitat preservation and research. These founders flipped the business model on its head and established a new lean organization where the lion’s share of money was targeted for its intended purpose: fostering the growth and health of bobwhite quail. The new group was christened Quail Coalition.

“The Texas chapters weren’t seeing much out of the Quail Unlimited,” recalled Jay Stine, Executive Director of the Quail Coalition and the group’s only paid employee. “We were raising a lot of money, but then writing a check for about 40 percent of it to support their organization”

Quail Coalition’s Executive Director, Jay Stine.

Local Quail Coalition chapters control their funds and activities. Their fund-raising efforts are unified on devotion to quail research, education and habitat improvement through collaboration with regional agencies and organizations. The only money that goes back to the Quail Coalition are Jay’s salary, office rent, web sites and youth programs. The goal was to retain ownership and proceeds of local funding-raising events. But there are few other caveats in regards to disbursement. 

“We don’t work with private land owners, but prefer to work with research organizations,” Jay said. 

With little fanfare, the streamlined organization has recently distributed some $2 million to the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch, Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute, The Quail-Tech Alliance, the Wildlife Toxicology Lab of Texas Tech University, the Sul Ross Borderlands Research Institute, Tall Timbers and The Wildlife Habitat Federation.

Since that seminal meeting in 2009, the 4,000 members of the Quail Coalition have raised approximately $30 million. 

A bobwhite quail chick wearing a VFH tracking transmitter.

One particular beneficiary was a quail translocation undertaking led by Tall Timbers in Tallahassee, Florida. The research institute received a grant from the Quail Coalition for a program to relocate wild quail from Livingston Place – their 9,100-acre property near Monticello, Florida. Called the Western Pineywoods Quail Program, the goal is to return the East Texas region, once abundant with wild quail, to its glory days.

Tall Timbers’ Bradley Kubecka, CWB, PhD, who is a Texas native, explained that over a period of several decades the pine forests of East Texas saw wild-quail declines due to reduced prescribed burns and lack of timber thinning. Much of the contributions for the rehabilitation of Pineywoods came from the Quail Coalition’s Dallas Park Cities and Houston chapters. 

Bradley Kubecka (second from left) with colleagues in some prime quail habitat.

“I pitched the idea to the idea to the landowners and  Park Cities chapter and they thought the program was really cool,” said Brad. “We need to be doing here what Tall Timbers is doing in the Red Hills. The Quail Coalition supported replicating the mission here in Texas.”

The East Texas Pineywoods project is located on private property in Polk County, Texas. Radio-tagged quail have been moved there from Tall Timbers and Livingston Place. Sixty bobwhites were trapped, tagged, and translocated to East Texas from north Florida in early January 2023 and another 60 two months later in March. The next batch of 60 translocated quail were captured and successfully released early in January 2024 with additional birds to be translocated in March 2024.

All translocated bobwhites were tagged with VHF transmitters and tracked daily. Survival rates of the translocated birds has been good, and with 1.1 nests per hen and 59-percent nest success over the past two years. Thirty-three of the 119 nests found (28 percent) from telemetry were incubated by males. Nests from unmarked birds were also documented in year two. By comparison, the last time a reproduction study was done in east Texas, 1990-1992, 46 nests were located during the entire 3-year project with much lower (32 percent) nest success. Those areas, though, won’t be open for hunting perhaps for another couple of years to allow the population to continue to grow.

QuailGuard

The Quail Coalition’s investment in research is also marked by a project with Texas Tech University that led to the 2024 approval of QuailGuard.

The FDA had concluded that the drug integrated into a medicated feed was both safe and effective in controlling parasites in wild quail in their natural habitat. For instance, eyeworm parasite infection levels in the Rolling Plains region of West Texas had been documented at over 60 percent while cecal worms have been documented at up to 90 percent throughout Texas. 

The Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch in Texas releasing quail.

Better yet, as a joint venture between Park Cities Quail Coalition and Dr. Ron Kendall, Ph.D., Professor of Environmental Toxicology, Wildlife Toxicology Laboratory at Texas Tech University, royalties from Quail Guard LLC will return to the Park City chapter and be spent on quail research and education in Texas. 

True to form, Quail Guard, LLC has no paid employees. Joe Crafton volunteers as president. He is also past president of the Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation and a member of the Upland Advisory Committee for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

“Our visibility is very well known in Texas, and other organizations are adopting our model of a low number of employees and putting more money into research,” said Jay. “We already have an organization in Oklahoma, and we’re looking to establish an organization in Alabama. We would love to get something established in the southeast like Mississippi and South Carolina. When we talk to those states, we are also revolutionizing the way those organizations are run.”

Irwin Greenstein is the publisher of Shotgun Life. You can reach him on the Shotgun Life Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/shotgunlife#

The web site for the Quail Coalition