Chapter dedicated to bringing back quail and educating community on benefits of weedy habitat.
Nashville, Tenn. –-(Ammoland.com)- Scottsburg, Va. –-(Ammoland.com)- Bobwhite quail enthusiasts in Virginia have formed the nation’s newest Quail Forever (QF) chapter.
Named Lake Country Quail Forever, hunters and conservationists created the Halifax County-based group to be an active force in reestablishing quail habitat in the region.
“I’ve been thinking about it (starting a Quail Forever chapter) for years,” says Hudson Reese, the chapter’s newly elected president and retired board member of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, “Our main goal is to bring back the habitat for quail. We also want to encourage and educate people to get involved with bobwhite restoration, because there are so many little things that people could do to help. Landowners need to overcome the mentality that ‘My property needs to look like a country club right now’ and understand the value of weeds.”
Reese, who lives in Halifax County, Virginia, started hunting 64 years ago at the age of ten. At age 16 or 17, he received his first bird dog, an English setter, from someone who “came to the county store one night and said ‘I’ve got a bird dog here, anyone want a bird dog?’” recalls Reese. He also remembers times in the 1960’s and 1970’s when it was not unusual to get a limit of quail in a half day’s hunt. A farmer on and off his whole life, Reese has always had some relationship with agriculture and attributes better quail numbers in the 1960’s and 70’s to the better habitat.
“The passion and eagerness for quail restoration Lake Country Quail Forever members have is undeniable, and that is exactly what we need to help get quail numbers in Virginia back,” says Charlie Payne, Quail Forever regional wildlife biologist, “I am confident this chapter will become the anchor for Quail Forever and the organization’s habitat mission in Southern Virginia.”
The Lake Country Quail Forever chapter
- The Lake Country Quail Forever chapter has also elected Amy Crews as youth/education chair, Tom Rowland as habitat chair, and John Voss as treasurer.
- The chapter’s annual banquet will be held on March 23, at Falkland Farms in Scottsburg.
- For more information on the Lake Country Quail Forever chapter, please contact Hudson Reese at (424) 454-6302 / email Hudson.
For information on “The Habitat Organization” in Virginia, contact Charlie Payne, Quail Forever’s regional wildlife biologist, at (614) 632-8393 / email Charlie. For all other information, contact Rehan Nana, Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever public relations specialist, at (651) 209-4973 / email Rehan.
Pheasants Forever, including its quail conservation division, Quail Forever, is the nation’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to upland habitat conservation. Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever have more than 135,000 members and 720 local chapters across the United States and Canada. Chapters are empowered to determine how 100 percent of their locally raised conservation funds are spent, the only national conservation organization that operates through this truly grassroots structure.
Quail Forever is dedicated to the conservation of quail, pheasants and other wildlife through habitat improvements, public awareness, education and land management policies and programs.