Bobwhite Quail vs. Tick Study
A Community Conservation Experiment
Please join our ground-breaking, original study by Ranger Eric Powers.

Help support this worthy project.  Schools all across Long Island doing Life Cycle Studies are asked to switch to Northern Bobwhite Quail eggs, and donate the chicks to my study.  About a dozen volunteers and I take them into our care and we raise them up to 8-10 weeks old for release into our public parks to reduce the tick populations naturally for the good of the community.  I personally pay for the food, bulbs, vet bills, and cage maintenance because I believe in this project, as do my many volunteers.  But we could do more with your financial support.  Please donate now!  ===== ==== ==== ==== ==== >>>
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The 15th Annual Bobwhite Quail Public Release 2018

Open to the public!  Special invitation to all the participating schools, teachers, children and their families!!!!
Hosted by Ranger Eric Powers, Biologist with YOUR CONNECTION TO NATURE.
Saturday July 14, 2018 @9:30am Intro, 10am release (Get there at 9am!)
Caleb Smith State Park Preserve located at 641 W Jericho Tpke, Smithtown NY 11787


NOTE: Participating classes are asked to bring one box/cat carrier per class for your very own extra special release further out in the Park!

Bring your camera and get ready to watch these Quail take their first flight into freedom, and hopefully restart their historic populations on Long Island.  But in the meantime, they'll be out there gobbling up ticks, spiders, grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars, and lots of seeds of weeds, and much more...so that you and I can enjoy our Parks with fewer ticks!

Please help support our project by coming to the release and / or passing around our flier...a free download...click orange button above.
See you there!

A little history...

Ranger Eric started this study in 1999 as he noticed the population of ticks inexplicably rising.  Using his Field Biology training, he conducted the first BioBlitz events on Long Island, four BioBlitz's in all.  These records are archived at the NYS Biodiversity Institute.  By 2002, he had started asking teachers to switch to quail eggs for their incubation studies and then donate their chicks to be released as part of our study.  Within 24-hours of release, we noticed a drastic drop in tick numbers.  We knew we had something special, but proving it with scientific methods has been an ongoing challenge.   Seeing the overwhelming popularity of our project, several other organizations on Long Island have now started their own Quail Release programs as well...but ours is still the original and most popular.  Our public quail releases continue to draw crowds of 200+ children and adults!!!

In our study we are attempting to show that by restoring Quail habitat on Long Island and releasing native Northern Bobwhite Quail birds back into our local environment, we can effectively reduce the numbers of ticks naturally, instead of using toxic pesticides. 

Feral cats, as well as indoor-outdoor cats, also take a massive toll on our ground-dwelling birds, such as bobwhite quail.  Some people make the argument that it is because so many people now have indoor-outdoor cats that we have in fact largely wiped out our quail populations on Long Island... eliminating the main tick predators...thereby creating the high tick population!  Certainly we know that cats have a serious negative impact on the environment, whether or not they are largely responsible for our tick populations I don't know, but from this point forward we should all strive to be responsible owners and raise our cats as indoor pets.

Our in-school program teaches about every aspect of our study, student responsibilities as "quail care-takers," how quail help with the balance of nature, quail ecology, and about the release date.  We also highlight animal life-cycles, bird ecology, the scientific method, outdoor observations and measurements, handling and raising quail, as well as doing good things for your community.

A call to action:  We are asking teachers (or anyone interested) to incubate Northern Bobwhite Quail eggs, donate the chicks at 1-2 weeks old. We hope you call ALL join us for the release date!  Please participate in our worthwhile "real world" science project and join the thousands who have come before you.  Together we will make a positive change for our community and give Mother Nature a helping hand!

"It adds so much to our classroom curriculum, and entices the students to learn about all aspects of the Quail, our environment, and our impact...good or bad...that we have on our environment.  No matter what, I'm IN again for next year!"   -Robin Obey, 2nd Grade Teacher
​Resources for the YC2N Quail vs Ticks Study

ABC's "Keep your cats indoor" campaign has valuable resources and stats about feral and indoor/outdoor cats. http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/get_involved.html 
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<===  Click the pic for the Mt. Sinai Quail Cam!

Many teachers ask how to setup the incubator and brooder for the Quail.  I have created two videos on YouTube that could help.
Here is the video to help setup your Quail Brooder...
David Letterman talks about Lyme Disease.