Distinguished Lectureship in Quail Management set Jan. 16 in Dallas

Annual event to focus on eyeworms in Texas quail

Writer: Steve Byrns, 325-653-4576, s-byrns@tamu.edu

Contact: Dr. Dale Rollins, 325-653-4576, d-rollins@tamu.edu

DALLAS – The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service will conduct the Distinguished Lectureship in Quail Management from 9 a.m.-noon  Jan. 16 in Dallas.

The seminar, featuring the topic “On the Trail of the Eyeworm in Texas Bobwhites,” will be in Seminar Hall C4 of the Dallas Convention Center. The program is being held in conjunction with the Dallas Safari Club’s annual convention. Admission to the quail lectureship is free, but admission to the safari club’s trade show is $20.

“Eyeworms have been identified as a contender for the ‘smoking gun’ involved with the years long decline of wild quail numbers across the state,” said Dr. Dale Rollins, AgriLife Extension’s statewide coordinator for the Reversing the Quail Decline Initiative at San Angelo. “Dr. Ronald Kendall, professor of toxicology at Texas Tech University’s Texas Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Lubbock, will be our keynote speaker.

“For those who have never heard Dr. Kendall, he is a passionate presenter, and is especially so about this quail research effort. He’s an avid quail hunter himself and thus has a keen personal, as well as professional, interest in finding a solution to the decline of bobwhites in West Texas.”

Kendall is involved with the Operation Idiopathic Decline research effort funded by the Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation, Rollins said.

“Kendall and his students have several studies underway with the goal of controlling eyeworms and cecal worms in wild quail, Rollins said. “This year’s lecture melds well with last January’s lecture by Dr. Peter Hudson, who identified and successfully treated cecal worms which were incriminated in the decline of red grouse in the United Kingdom.”

The Distinguished Lectureship in Quail Management seminar was initiated in 2008 with the first three being in Roby, site of the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch. But for the past two years, Rollins said the Dallas Safari Club has generously welcomed and supported the educational effort.

The lectureship is sponsored by the Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation and is funded in part through the legislatively funded Reversing the Quail Decline Initiative, in cooperation with AgriLife Extension, the Dallas Safari Club and the Quail Coalition.

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