{"id":1025,"date":"2019-03-04T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saquailforever.com\/?p=1025"},"modified":"2024-01-09T10:46:48","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T17:46:48","slug":"march-presidents-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/march-presidents-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"March President’s Corner"},"content":{"rendered":"
An update from Southern Arizona Quail Forever.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
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2019 Youth Hunt<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Overview:<\/strong><\/div>\n
-Our winter rain and snowfall has been good and can not hurt as we look forward to next season. It should make a difference for desert quail.<\/div>\n
-U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge [BANWR] has released a little over 400 Masked Bobwhite chicks. Chick survival has been better than expected.\u00a0 Buenos Aires NWR staff have found a previously unknown covey a few weeks ago but have not yet been able to release radioed birds with the covey to monitor them. We have 3 out of the 4 known coveys still being tracked. As the initial radio batteries or the collared birds die additional collared birds have been released that have joined with existing coveys.\u00a0 These coveys were being tracked by sight since we know the location they hangout in. However, a week ago radioed female masked bobwhites were released into the 3 known coveys to make our monitoring more accurate and to be informed on any unexpected long distance movements. Currently more masked bobwhite females are being released into the monitored coveys to help the coveys sex ratios.\u00a0 Once warmer weather arrives, the male masked bobwhite chicks released last year should fill the air with their famous “bobwhite” mating call.<\/div>\n
-Biologists from several western states met in Sonoita in early Feb for the Western Quail Working Group.\u00a0 Jim Littlejohn and I attended one day of it and were impressed with some of the new technology that may aide in quail research and the cooperation between the states.<\/div>\n
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Cactus<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Access to Public Lands<\/strong>:<\/div>\n
-Thanks to all that helped with our winter road cleanup in Feb. We had a good turnout and covered more of the highway than normal.<\/div>\n
-San Rafael Valley.\u00a0 The public has lost driving access to a large area in San Rafael Valley.\u00a0 Details were provided to those that attended our Dec meeting.\u00a0 CNF is evaluating bypass routes before starting the NEPA process required before road building can start.\u00a0 Work on this has been delayed by the government shutdown and our next meeting with CNF and AZ G&F on this subject has been moved back to 19 March.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Habitat<\/strong>:<\/div>\n
-We are getting several opportunities to help out with habitat work at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.\u00a0 This gives us a special opportunity to help out with the Masked Bobwhite which is an endangered species.<\/div>\n
-Jim Littlejohn met with Santa Cruz Natural Resource Conservation District ( NRCD ) in Patagonia to explain our habitat program.\u00a0 As a result ranchers and government divisions are more aware of what we want to accomplish which could lead to a project in Santa Cruz county.<\/div>\n
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Mearns Habitat<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Chapter Meetings:<\/strong><\/div>\n
-We will hold our last meeting of the season 14 Mar in Sahuarita at the American Legion Hall Post 66.\u00a0 We will get a presentation on the impact of the farm bill to AZ.<\/div>\n
-All meetings will be 7-9 PM with social starting at 6:15.<\/div>\n
–Please send me your thoughts on our meetings to help us provide what members want.\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
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Chapter Meeting<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Banquet:<\/strong><\/div>\n
We reviewed lessons from our banquet to make next years event even better.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Family Day\/Youth Hunt:<\/strong><\/div>\n
-This years event at Empire Ranch was well attended by participants and volunteers.\u00a0 We had great weather although the wind did start to blow late in the day.\u00a0 The trap station allowed us to get many new folks out in the field shooting over the dogs.\u00a0 We saw a lot of new faces, had several young women and adults participate.\u00a0 The event was conducted with safety as our first priority. National Wild Turkey Chapter out of Sierra Vista crew were a great addition this year adding the trap station, running the BB gun range and providing the dining tent – we want to keep this partnership going.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t get more youth outdoors and involved in hunting, hunting will transition to a European model where only the rich will hunt in the not that distant future.<\/div>\n
-We are making a donation to Arizona Outdoors Adventures to support a camping trip in the White Mountains for at-risk youth.\u00a0 We received a brief on their activity at our Dec meeting.<\/div>\n
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Youth Hunt<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Chapter Website and Facebook:<\/strong><\/div>\n
We work to keep our sites current.\u00a0 If you see an error or recommendation for improvement please let us know.\u00a0 We are always looking for pictures, stories or articles to add.\u00a0 Many of you have seen our slide show that we show at QuailFest and the banquet – if you have pictures that would be a good addition please send them to me.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Volunteers Needed:<\/strong><\/div>\n
Please consider volunteering to be a member of one of our committees.\u00a0 We need help on habitat, banquet and youth committees or you can just help out with an event like QuailFest, the banquet, road cleanup or BANWR habitat.\u00a0 We also have some open positions on our board.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Future Dates:\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
    \n
  • 14 Mar Chapter Meeting American Legion Sahuarita<\/li>\n
  • 14 & 15 Mar Habitat Work at BANWR<\/li>\n
  • 15 Mar Chapter Receives an Award from AZ G&F Commission<\/li>\n
  • 30\/31 Mar AZ G&F Expo at Ben Avery<\/li>\n
  • TBD Oct Scaled Quail Covey Count Bonita<\/li>\n
  • 18 Oct Desert Quail Opens<\/li>\n
  • 21 Nov Chapter Meeting American Legion Sahuarita<\/li>\n
  • TBD Nov Fall Road Cleanup<\/li>\n
  • 6 Dec Mearns Opens<\/li>\n
  • 7 Dec QuailFest<\/li>\n
  • 12 Dec Chapter Meeting Fairgrounds Sonoita<\/li>\n
  • 16 Jan 20 Chapter Meeting Fairgrounds Sonoita<\/li>\n
  • 1 Feb 20 8th Annual Banquet Sonoita<\/li>\n
  • 9 Feb 20 Quail Closes<\/li>\n
  • 20 Feb 20 Chapter Meeting Fairgrounds Sonoita<\/li>\n
  • TBD Feb 20 Winter Road Cleanup<\/li>\n
  • 29 Feb 20 Family Day\/Youth Hunt<\/li>\n
  • 19 Mar 20 Chapter Meeting American Legion Sahuarita<\/li>\n
  • TBD 20 Chapter Officer Election Cycle<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    An update from Southern Arizona Quail Forever.\u00a0 Overview: -Our winter rain and snowfall has been good and can not hurt as we look forward to next season. It should make a difference for desert quail. -U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge [BANWR] has released a little over 400 Masked Bobwhite…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[14,25,29,31,38,39,52,55],"class_list":["post-1025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-updates","tag-coronado-national-forest","tag-gambels-quail","tag-highway-clean-up","tag-masked-bobwhite-quail","tag-quail-festival","tag-quail-forever","tag-southern-arizona-quail-forever","tag-u-s-fish-and-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2588,"href":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions\/2588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saquailforever.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}