Bringing back a locally extinct bird
Farm owner is trying to restore bobwhite quail
— In 2019, Erick Taylor bought 152 acres of land on Jeremy Hill Road — half in North Stonington and the other half, containing 20 pre-approved building lots, in Stonington.
But Taylor didn’t build any homes. He built a farm.
At Devon Point Farm, Taylor and his wife, Patty, raise heritage pigs and Devon beef cattle, an ancient breed of hardy cows extinct in their native England and labeled as recovering in the U.S. after rebounding from just 100 animals.
While the livestock they raise are their bread and butter, the conservation-minded Taylor is pursuing another passion on the property — advocating for the bobwhite quail.
Taylor said last week that, growing up in Connecticut, he often heard the distinctive call of the aptly named bird: “Bob White,” which rises in pitch like a question.
He said the chunky little 10-inchlong birds, which have a particular taste for ticks and help reduce tickborne diseases like Lyme disease, began disappearing in the 1970s and were gone by the 1990s. Today, experts widely consider the wild population locally extinct.
He points to costly initiatives in states like Pennsylvania, where officials are bolstering the dwindling bobwhite population with wild birds from other states, but Taylor thinks it can be done here by releasing captive-raised birds for far less money.
Currently, people with a liberation permit can release captive-raised bobwhite quail for hunting purposes, training hunting dogs and field trials, but Taylor wants the state to loosen restrictions so he and others can try to restore the population.
DEEP concerns
Laurie Fortin, a wildlife biologist with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said last week the survival of captive-raised quail is unlikely due to predation, hunting, loss of habitat and limited food sources along with disease, genetic issues and a general lack of experience including foraging and raising chicks.
“I think it’s fair to say that, while they are a beloved species by many, captive rearing and release is probably not going to increase their wild populations in the long run,” Fortin said.
She also noted it is unclear if the wild population is entirely gone, and captively raised birds can carry diseases or have genetic issues that may further weaken the wild population.
Taylor argued the concerns are unwarranted, as most sources indicate that there is no longer a wild popu
lation in the state to harm, and if wild quail do still exist here, rules intended to protect them don’t make sense.
“In Connecticut, if you own a hunting preserve, you can release quail, and those quail, they don’t know the boundaries. They can escape and get off the property, so they are already getting released,” he said.
In 2021, Taylor, an upland bird hunter, decided to get a permit and some bobwhites to train his hunting dog. A fortunate accident proved his point and convinced him captive-raised bobwhites could survive in the wild.
He put up a suspended pen and bought some birds, but, as a quail-keeping novice, he released all of them, not realizing he had to keep one of the birds in the pen to call the others home.
“Those suckers don’t come back, so I lost like 30 birds. They just wouldn’t come back to their pen,” he said, chuckling at his former ignorance.
Available information convinced him they wouldn’t survive, but to his surprise, seven months later, people started to call him, saying they had seen his quail as well as young chicks.
An uncomfortable conversation
Ever since, Taylor has been diving into research, questioning prevailing wisdom on resurrecting a wild population and why they disappeared in the first place.
“When you look at the birds disappearing, there’s this uncomfortable conversation you have to have about why they disappeared,” Taylor said.
He said there were many factors but pointed to 1972 when hawks were added to a list of federally protected birds. He said that ever since, as the hawk population has risen, the bobwhite population has dropped proportionally.
A 55-year study by research organization Tall Timbers, which has tagged over 30,000 bobwhites since 1968, seems to agree, saying there are many causes of bobwhite decline, but historically high populations of owls and hawks have significantly aggravated the problem. It specifically points to migrating Cooper’s hawks, the quail’s main avian predator, which cause intermittent but considerable spikes in bobwhite mortality rates.
The study also noted that, while most captive-raised quail struggle to survive in the wild, and do not know how to raise chicks because of the captive breeding process, “not all quail are created equal,” and survival rates can be increased dramatically by providing suitable habitats of bushes and grasses that give cover from predators, appropriate food sources, nesting and breeding areas.
To address these needs, Taylor designed and built a towable pen that he can move around his property, so the birds have a safe place to learn to forage, giving them a head start on survival when he releases them to train his dog.
He said it seems to be working. Up to 25 birds have been spotted at once, and during training last week, his dog flushed out a covey, or family group, of quail released last July.
Integrating solar panels
Taylor believes all that is needed is an appropriate habitat and protection from predators while they reestablish themselves, which made him think even bigger, and start talking with a solar company about implementing an idea on his property.
He noticed that solar energy companies plant grass under the panels on their fencedin solar farms. He said grass requires frequent mowing, but by planting low-growing, low-maintenance bushes, native grasses and flowers, companies could see reduced costs in the long term.
“You have to pay people to go out once or twice a month to mow, and that gets expensive,” he said.
“Say the upfront costs are a little more to plant plugs of native grasses rather than scatter seed down of Kentucky blue grass. The cost might be a little more, but all in all, it’s going to be better for the company by a huge margin.”
At the same time, it would be attractive and an ideal habitat for wildlife like quail, rabbits, and pollinators like bees. The panels would provide protection from birds of prey and the fence would protect the animals from ground predators.
To prove it could work, Taylor created a 30-foot-diameter model habitat filled with ground juniper, switch grass, echinacea, black-eyed Susans and beach plums, among other native plants.
“I did it to create a sort of microcosm example of what could be done,” he explained, adding he would like to see the state require solar companies to do this sort of low-maintenance planting.
Taylor urged people to advocate for the birds, and noted the state is currently accepting public input for its 2025 CT Wildlife Action Plan which directs how the state identifies and addresses wildlife conservation needs in the state.
“It just makes sense,” he said.