The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) signed an agreement today with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to provide support for a staff of biologists, private land conservationists, and wetland specialists to help deliver specialized fish, forest, wildlife and wetland resource conservation planning and other assistance to Missouri landowners.
Outdoors
MDC and partners need public’s help to reverse declining bird numbers
A recent study from prominent bird researchers in the U.S. and Canada, including Cornell Lab of Ornithology, found that North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds in the last 50 years, and those declines are also occurring in Missouri. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) is partnering with other conservation agencies and organizations to address population declines in the state and offer solutions.
Belle Fontaine Park - first military installation west of Mississippi
It is a well-known fact that my wife, Dian, is an award winning outdoor photographer. She loves the outdoors but is not as active as she had been in years past. Grandchildren entered the scene. Regardless, she announced a few weeks ago that she wanted to take a photo trip to Belle Fontaine Park in St. Louis County.
Quail coveys are calling, biologists are counting
Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) wildlife biologists are spending time in the field tuning their ear to the sound of quail coveys. A group of quail is called a covey. Quail form their coveys, as few as five birds to as many as 50, in late summer and stay together through the fall and winter. By listening to the calls, biologists can estimate the quail population in a particular area.
We can do something to help our wild birds
To follow up on last week’s column I think someone somewhere had better begin to think about finding ways to raise whippoorwill fledglings in a captive environment for release into the wild. That may be the answer in the wake of constantly increasing numbers of woodland predators that eat the bird’s eggs. As I pointed out last week, birds which nest in woodlands face problems from opossums, skunks, armadillos, black snakes, weasels and raccoons.