{"id":30288,"date":"2020-02-18T00:05:30","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T08:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/?post_type=custom_quick&p=30288"},"modified":"2020-12-23T09:41:22","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T17:41:22","slug":"how-a-beloved-bird-is-helping-save-the-chesapeake-bay","status":"publish","type":"custom_quick","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/article-short\/how-a-beloved-bird-is-helping-save-the-chesapeake-bay\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Beloved Bird Is Helping Save the Chesapeake Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Practical Solutions for the Ocean\u2019s Ailments<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Dan Small parks his orange truck in the shade of a cedar tree and sets off on foot down a dirt lane. Native grasses, humming with insects, stretch for more than 93 hectares under a radiant summer sky. From somewhere in the waist-high grass, a small game bird lets out a whistle: Bob-WHITE<\/em>!<\/p>\n

The northern bobwhite quail\u2019s clear call is a sound Small, a field ecologist, is always thrilled to hear. It\u2019s been decades since this once-common bird filled the air with its song and scurried in coveys across the fields and yards of Maryland\u2019s Eastern Shore. Small is the coordinator of the Natural Lands Project at Washington College\u2019s Center for Environment and Society. The college, just a few kilometers down the road, partially owns this farm. Here, the grasslands provide food and cover for the imperiled species that\u2019s slightly larger than a robin. Small is the engineer of a local push to save two treasures that have suffered from a rise in intensive industrial agriculture over the past half-century: the northern bobwhite and the Chesapeake Bay.<\/p>\n

It turns out that what\u2019s good for the social, dark-eyed quail is also good for the bay, a massive estuary that stretches for roughly 320 kilometers between Maryland and Virginia. The Natural Lands Project has teamed up with local farmers and landowners to create habitat for the quail by turning hundreds of hectares of marginal croplands into perennial native grasslands. The grasses offer cover for quail as they scamper across the ground, foraging for food; wildflowers attract the insects the birds eat. The vegetation also grips the soil, soaks up nutrients coming off the agricultural fields, and provides softer, more natural shorelines than concrete or riprap. By preventing erosion, the grasses keep agricultural runoff\u2014sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus\u2014from entering the Chesapeake Bay.<\/p>\n

The fields where Small has come today are the model. After 20 years of careful management and experimentation with different combinations of grasses and wildflowers, the River and Field Campus, as this farm is known, is now home to an estimated 450 quail, believed to be the largest population in Maryland and a 39 percent increase from two decades ago.<\/p>\n

\"Ecologist<\/a>

Dan Small, a field ecologist and coordinator of the Natural Lands Project at Washington College\u2019s Center for Environment and Society in Maryland, surveys a farm, listening for the call of the northern bobwhite quail. Photo by Will Parson\/Chesapeake Bay Program<\/p><\/div>\n

Quail populations across the Eastern Shore aren\u2019t what they could be, Small says. Using the River and Field Campus\u2019s success as an example, he looks for landowners who\u2019d be willing to plant quail-friendly native grasses on their properties. River and Field Campus\u2019s fields have the same crops and same predators as surrounding properties, he says. \u201cThe only difference between our farm and other farms is that we have habitat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The northern bobwhite quail once lived across much of the eastern United States. But its population plummeted by 85 percent from 1966 to 2014 because of habitat loss. In this part of the Chesapeake region, changes to farming practices have dramatically altered the quail\u2019s habitat. After the Second World War, farm fields got bigger and croplands soon stretched right up to the edge of creeks, rivers, and roads. Most of the closely spaced shrubs and small trees that used to mark boundaries between fields disappeared. These hedgerows sheltered quail; without them, the quail grew scarce.<\/p>\n

The Chesapeake Bay\u2019s decline tracks closely with these changes. Sediment loosened from the land through farming rushes into waterways during heavy rains and once in the bay smothers underwater grasses. In high concentrations, phosphorus and nitrogen from manure and fertilizers can deplete oxygen and create dead zones that suffocate aquatic life. Roughly a quarter of the 165,760-square-kilometer Chesapeake watershed\u2014which drains parts of six states and the entire District of Columbia\u2014is agricultural. Yet farms account for 58 percent of the sediment that runs into the bay, 58 percent of the phosphorus, and 42 percent of the nitrogen.<\/p>\n

So how does the program work? Small is a familiar face in this close-knit community; neighbors talk. He also finds landowners by distributing flyers and speaking with reporters at local newspapers. At the outset, Small asks landowners to commit to taking a parcel of land out of commission for 10 years, for which they receive a one-time payment of US $1,112 per hectare. Small and the landowners look at maps, walk or drive around the farms, and settle on which and how many hectares to convert. When it\u2019s time to get the land ready, Small\u2019s team of contractors usually plows, mows, and sprays herbicide to clear out existing vegetation. Occasionally, a landowner will do the plowing and mowing if they have the equipment and time.<\/p>\n