RETURN OF THE BANDIT QUAIL

RETURN OF THE BANDIT QUAIL TEXT BY BOB WHITAKER PHOTOGRAPHY BY GEORGE H. H. HUEY

For Jim and Seymour Levy, it had been a disastrous week. Tattered and torn, the Tucson ornithologists had followed rumors and hearsay into some of the wildest backcountry of the Mexican state of Sonora. Their mission: to locate a last remnant population of North America's rarest quail.

Once common through much of southern Arizona, the masked bobwhite disappeared in the late 1890s, a casualty of severe overgrazing and land abuse.

Now it was the mid-1960s, with time running out for any reasonable chance of finding the lost birds. The Levys suspected that any remaining masked quail would most likely be found in the remote homeland of the Yaqui Indians, where overgrazing had not yet occurred. But the dream of finding a covey of these beautiful birds with their redtoned breasts and distinctive black head masks was fast fading. Traveling in areas that few Americans had ever visited, the pair showed pictures of the quail to rancher after rancher. None claimed ever to have seen one of the birds.

Disappointed, the Levys abandoned the thorn forests and grasslands of central Sonora and headed back toward the border for one final scouting of Rancho Carrizo, north of Hermosillo.

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Exhausted after a week of fruitless searching, they pulled off along busy Mexican Highway 15 and set up camp. As evening approached, Jim Levy explored a nearby thicket. Suddenly, he caught his breath, then whistled at his brother. Excitedly he pointed to a cactus wren's nest containing a single brick-red breast feather the wren had used to help line the interior. It was unmistakably the feather of a masked bobwhite. The two men slept fitfully that night. "When Jim opened his eyes at dawn, hewas struck suddenly speechless," recalls Seymour Levy. "There parading past his cot was not one bird, but a whole covey of masked quail!"

The Levy adventure is only one of many in the long struggle to save this rarest of quail and return it to Arizona. For decades the species was on the brink of extinction, the fate of the Labrador duck, passenger pigeon, and heath hen. But success in its rehabilitation now seems at hand with the purchase in 1985 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of the 118,694-acre Buenos Aires Ranch, eight miles north of the Mexican border. The ranch has been designated a wildlife refuge, with special attention to be focused on the masked bobwhite.

Congressman Morris Udall, who strongly supported the purchase, emphasized that time was of the essence: "The ranch was for sale, but the price was so high, only a land developer could have justified the purchase. This, of course, would have ended any hope of reestablishing masked bobwhites in their historic habitat in the Altar Valley."

Wayne Shifflett, newly appointed manager of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, is optimistic about the bird's fu-ture in Arizona: "The challenge is to restore grasslands on the ranch to what they were when the bobwhites lived in harmony with the Pimas, Papagos, and Apaches long before white men and livestock arrived. I have no doubt this can be done, and the call of this spectacular bird again will float over southern Arizona grasslands."

Shifflett isn't wasting time. Already, pen-raised chicks, derived from stock captured by the Levys and others in Mexico, have been released on lands reseeded with hardy grasses. An imaginative method of using foster parents is helping the program succeed.

"We captured wild Texas bobwhites, close relatives, and are using them as surrogate parents to show the new chicks how to survive in open grasslands," explained the refuge manager. "This is similar to the technique used successfully with whooping cranes, in which eggs are placed in nests of the more abundant sandhill cranes for hatching and care."

Actually, a long trail of frustration and defeat preceded the success at Buenos Aires Ranch. The story of the masked bobwhite's decline, disappearance, and ultimate return to Arizona reads muchlike a detective mystery, complete with intrigue and sensitive sleuthing. Southern Arizona's early pioneers found the handsome birds in abundance, thriving in the area's superb grass cover. But beginning in the early 1870s, herds of Mexican cattle, eventually totaling nearly two million head, were driven across the territory toward northern and eastern markets. Grazing on the virgin grasses, the longhorns stripped the land of cover. Ten years of drought followed, then a year of heavy flooding. That finished the grass. Bud Bassett, retired regional manager of the Arizona Game and Fish Department, sums it up: "In less than twenty-five years, most of southern Arizona's richest topsoil washed into the Sea of Cortes." As the grasslands diminished, so did the masked bobwhites. By the late 1890s, the quail had all but disappeared from their former range in Arizona, though intermittent reports persisted of masked bobwhite sightings in remote areas of Sonora. In 1927, Les Woodell, an American operating a ranch near Magdalena, Sonora, flushed a covey of unfamilar birds while herding cattle over newly acquired rangelands. Interested in learning more about them, he sent five of them to his friend Griffing Bancroft, a noted California zoologist. Bancroft immediately recognized the birds as the long-lost masked bobwhites and raced southward to join Woodell. For days the pair fruitlessly searched the ranch and surrounding foothills, but found no further trace of the birds. Dejected, they wandered into a Magdalena restaurant operated by a man called "Jimmy the Greek" and noticed game birds listed on the luncheon menu. Curious, they introduced themselves to Jimmy, who took them out back where the game birds were kept. There in a small cage were several chirping masked bobwhites. The Americans promptly peeled out sufficient pesos to buy the

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The old adobe ranch house on the historic Buenos Aires Ranch, now a national wildlife refuge (OPPOSITE PAGE), will soon be converted into the sanctuary's visitor center. More than 21,000 acres of privately held property was combined with 97,000 acres of state owned and leased holdings to provide enough rolling grassland to support and protect the masked bobwhite. (CLOCKWISE, FROM ABOVE) The first arrivals. Wayne Shifflett unloads three-week-old masked bobwhite chicks, bred at the Patuxent National Wildlife Research Center in Maryland and destined for release on the Buenos Aires. Steve Dobrott gingerly places a masked bobwhite chick in a heated brooder where it will spend the next three days getting acquainted with its foster father. Prior to their release, Dobrott feeds the chicks their last meal in captivity.birds and brought them back to the United States.

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It was from this meager number of cap-tured quail that the first eggs were hatched in captivity and reintroduction efforts begun. Unfortunately, all attempts to re-store them into the wild failed. The prob-lem was obvious: large acreages of re-stored virgin grasslands were required, and this would take more money than a couple of private citizens could provide. Meanwhile, ranchers already were grazing herds precariously close to where the quail were believed to be tenaciously clinging to survival.

Then came the discovery of birds by the Levys along Highway 15, brighteninghopes that perhaps small pockets of quail remained on established ranches. “I think the reason we found them in that portion of the Carrizo Ranch was because it was several miles from water, too far for a cow to travel,” Seymour Levy surmised.

The Levys discovered more birds in Mexico, which they captured and sent to Patuxent National Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland, for propagation.

The Fish and Wildlife Service took a hand in trying again to restore the birds to Arizona. Biologist Roy Tomlinson was assigned to work with southern Arizona ranchers in setting aside ungrazed areas specifically for the bobwhites. Buenos Aires Ranch was one of those selected.

(BELOW) Baby masked bobwhites march into the wilds as Steve Dobrott urges them on by tapping on their release box. At five weeks old, the birds are mature enough to learn the ways of the wild from their Texas bobwhite foster parents. The first generation of captive-bred birds survived the winter of 1985-86 very well, and are expected to breed this summer and produce the first native Buenos Aires masked bobwhites in nearly a century.

(BELOW, RIGHT) The brick-red breast and black bead and neck are the unmistakable markings of a mature male masked bobwhite. LEVY BROTHERS The ranch owners agreed, and offspring from the birds furnished to Patuxent by the Levys were brought back to Arizona and planted on Buenos Aires.

For two years they thrived. Then misfortune struck again. Errant cattle broke through a fence into the enclosed grasslands and destroyed the lush cover. Interest wained, Tomlinson was transferred, and again the masked bobwhite project was in limbo.

But the Fish and Wildlife Service hadn't forgotten the birds. When the Buenos Aires Ranch was put up for sale in 1984, the agency was ready with an offer. Encouragement came from the National Audubon Society, which recognized that this ranch in the Altar Valley provided the best and perhaps the last opportunity to save the masked bobwhite from extinction. The Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to the purchase of 21,258 acres of private land and 97,436 acres of state and other leased lands. The cost: nine million dollars.

At first the proposal ignited a heated controversy between environmentalists and local citizens concerned that the loss of the private cattle operation would destroy the economy of the nearby town of Sasabe. Tempers flared until the Secretary of the Interior agreed to the purchase in February, 1985. Surprisingly, opposition quickly subsided.

“It seemed that the local townsfolk and ranchers, after the final decision, saw that a national wildlife refuge on their doorstep would prove a major attraction, drawing tourists from across the country,” commented refuge manager Wayne Shifflett. “Now they come out with their

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friends to show off the refuge and see how the birds are doing." He added that the husband of one of the most vociferous opponents of the purchase now is employed on the refuge. Already, the Buenos Aires is attracting national attention, Shifflett reports. Groups of bird-watchers come to see not only the quail, but also the eighty-six other bird species so far identified on the refuge.

"This number will increase even more as grasslands expand, with sloughs and ponds developed to attract shorebirds and waterfowl," he predicted.

I visited the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge shortly after it was acquired and watched Shifflett and biologist Steve Dobrott release some of the first masked bobwhites into heavy grass cover near headquarters.

The Texas bobwhite surrogate parents hustled their adopted broods into protective cover. One large cock sprang out ahead of the chicks as they left the release box and spread its wings in challenge to predators, as its wards clucked their way into the deep grass.

According to Shifflet, 1000 young masked bobwhites were released during 1985, with 2000 more scheduled for planting on the refuge during 1986. This will provide the Buenos Aires with a base population of 700 breeding pairs, considered sufficient to insure that Arizona's bandit quail are home to stay at last.

Selected Reading

Status Summary and Recovery Plan for the Masked Bobwhite, by David E. Brown and David H. Ellis. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C., 1984.

The Birds of Arizona, by Allan Phillips, Joe Marshall, and Gale Monson. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978. Available through Arizona Highways. $41.00, postpaid. To order, call (602) 258-1000.

Field Guide to the Birds of North America. National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C., 1983.

The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge is set in the Altar Valley, a southern Arizona landscape dominated by the Baboquivari Mountains, which have special religious significance for the Papago Indians.

Visitors to the refuge check in at ranch headquarters on State Route 286 to obtain a map and literature. There is no admission charge. Mailing address and phone are: Wayne Shifflet, refuge manager, Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, P.O. Box 109, Sasabe, Arizona 85633; (602) 823-4251.

The cool season of the year-October through April-is the most comfortable time to schedule your visit. But the best time to see the masked bobwhite is late July through September. Dress comfortably. Wear walking shoes. And bring binoculars. Be sure to carry a supply of water in your vehicle.

Restaurants are in short supply in the area, too, so plan accordingly.

In addition to the endangered masked bobwhite, you will see shorebirds and waterfowl on ranch ponds. And within the seven-by-twenty-five-mile reserve you may also find another endangered species: the peregrine falcon.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has not yet had an opportunity to develop the ranch for visitors. Future plans, however, call for a visitor center, tours, a loop drive, and a hiking trail.

Drive to the ranch via State Route 286. The entrance is fifty miles south of Robles Junction, which links 286 with State Route 86 out of Tucson, the nearest metropolitan city. If you travel south from Tucson on Interstate 19, take the Amado-Arivaca Junction turnoff and head west for thirty-two miles to State Route 286. The last twelve miles of the turnoff road are well-graded gravel.

The information above was accurate at press time but is subject to change.