EP 6 | Beyond Bobwhites: How Quail Forever Benefits All Wildlife

In this intriguing conversation the guys talk to Ryan Parker and Katrina Sims about how approximately 98% of Arkansas's native prairies have disappeared, replaced by dense forests and non-native grasses that create "biological deserts" for wildlife. Yet hope remains. "Native seed can sit in the soil for decades, a hundred years or more," explains Parker. "With the right management conditions, if you run a fire across it at the right time, those seeds will germinate." This resilience forms the foundation of Quail Forever's restoration work.

While their name suggests a focus solely on quail, Quail Forever's mission encompasses entire ecosystems. Their work benefits thousands of species from native bees and butterflies to songbirds and amphibians. The organization offers free consultations to landowners, helping them navigate restoration options whether they own a windowsill garden or thousands of acres. For those without land, volunteer opportunities exist through local chapters that conduct community projects and educational programs.

Perhaps most surprising is how conservation and agriculture can work hand-in-hand. Native grasses not only provide critical wildlife habitat but also excellent forage for livestock, with documented weight gains rivaling or exceeding those from introduced forages. "It's a win-win," Sims explains, discussing their demonstration sites where cattle producers can see native grazing systems in action.

Ready to make a difference? Contact Quail Forever through their Facebook page (Quail Forever in Arkansas) or visit their website to learn about upcoming events, volunteer opportunities, and how you can transform your own space—no matter how small—into thriving habitat that helps make Arkansas truly worthy of its nickname.

Here is the list of links referred to in this episode.

Web Soil Survey Map: https://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/WebSoilSurvey.aspx

Quail Forever Website: https://www.quailforever.org/

Seed Store: https://www.pfhabitatstore.com/

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArkansasQF/about

_______________________

What is the Natural Obsession Podcast all about?

Growing up, we all had those moments in nature that stuck with us—whether it was a quiet walk in the woods or a grand adventure. On Natural Obsession, it’s our desire to bring those moments to life. As we talk to people from all walks of life we will learn how they fell in love with the outdoors, the different ways they enjoy it today, and explore how we can work together to ensure these spaces are around for years to come. It’s all about sharing memories from the outdoors and ensuring future generations can make their own.

To find out more about Natural Obsession and hosts, Daniel Emison and TJ Virden, visit our website at https://www.natob.co/.

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Episode Transcript

TJ (00:03):
What is Quail Forever?
For those of us who don't know.

Ryan (00:05):
In our mission statement there's a line that says
conserve quail, pheasants andother wildlife and I really grab
onto that and other wildlifepiece Beneficial insects,
pollinators, bumblebees,butterflies, collared lizards,
amphibians, the whole gambit.

TJ (00:20):
So, no matter what you're doing in the outdoors, quail
Forever is something that youshould want to be partnering
with.

Katrina (00:25):
Yeah.

TJ (00:25):
I sure hope so.

Daniel (00:27):
On Natural Obsession.
We're building a community ofpeople who love the outdoors and
want to see it flourish.
Through honest conversationswith adventurers,
conservationists and otherinteresting individuals, we
explore what makes our naturalspaces so special and how we can
all work together to preservethem.
It's about learning from thepast, appreciating the present
and protecting the future, onestory at a time.

TJ (01:02):
Hi, this is TJ Virden, this is Daniel Emison and this is the
Natural Obsession Podcast.
Hello and welcome to theNatural Obsession Podcast.
Today, we're joined by RyanParker and Katrina Sims from
Quail Forever of Arkansas.
How are you guys doing?

(01:22):
Good, I'm doing really well.
How are you guys?
Awesome, it's good to have youguys with us today.
We appreciate you all comingout.
Katrina, you driving all theway down from Harrison, is that
right?

Katrina (01:31):
Yep, thanks for having me.
It was a good drive thismorning, nice and early.

TJ (01:35):
Good weather for it no rain.

Ryan (01:36):
Yeah, we've.

TJ (01:37):
It's got pretty much everybody in the state affected
right now.
Yeah, Well, you guys, we justwanted to start out by asking

(01:57):
what is Quail Forever?
For those of us who don't know

Ryan (01:59):
Yeah, we are Pheasants Forever Inc and Quail Forever
that's our entire organization'sname.
So if you've heard of PheasantsForever, we brand ourselves as
Pheasants Forever out west andup north in pheasant country.
Here in the southern US, wecall ourselves Quail Forever
because we're in quail country.
So we're an upland wildlifehabitat organization, a 501c3
nonprofit.
We're in 41 states, I believe,and we work on public and

(02:22):
private lands to deliver uplandwildlife habitat for quail and
other wildlife.

TJ (02:27):
Cool.
So I know we've kind of talkedabout this, but I wanted to kind
of get this out in the open forour guests.
Quail Forever is not just forquail, or pheasant for that
matter.

Katrina (02:36):
Yeah, we're kind of.
You know our name is QuailForever, but I like to tell
people we're a habitat foreverything.
So quail are kind of this knowour focal species so we get, you
know, certain funding for themand helping because you know
their populations reallydeclined but they're very
specific and what they need.
But what quail need is reallygood for a lot of our species
that are in decline or, you know, due to habitat loss.

(02:57):
So you know, if we can createsomething that's going to
benefit quail, we're creatingsomething that's going to
benefit a whole slew of otherspecies as well.
So we like to focus onecological restoration of the
ecosystem that we're in, justbecause we've kind of moved
really far from whatecologically should be there due
to fire suppression, you know,urbanization, smaller tracts of

(03:19):
land, as you know, farms aregetting smaller and smaller.
So we really try to focus onthat and, you know, improve that
stuff.

Ryan (03:26):
Yeah, just real quickly in our mission statement.
I won't read the whole thinghere but, there's a line that
says conserve quail, pheasantsand other wildlife.
Okay, and I really grab ontothat and other wildlife piece
yeah.

TJ (03:39):
And so when you say another wildlife, we're talking about
non-gang species as well,correct?

Ryan (03:45):
Beneficial insects, pollinators, bumblebees,
butterflies, collared lizards,amphibians I mean the whole
gambit.

TJ (03:51):
Yeah.
So, no matter what you're doingin the outdoors, quail Forever
is something that you shouldwant to be partnering with.

Ryan (03:56):
I sure hope so.

TJ (03:57):
Yeah.
So why don't we talk about whateach one of you guys do with
the organization?
Ryan, I know you're the statecoordinator.
You want to unpack that for us,maybe.

Ryan (04:13):
A lot to unpack there.
Yeah, I'm the Arkansas statecoordinator for Quail Forever,
so I oversee our organizationhere in the state of Arkansas.
We have 25 full-time positionsbetween biologists, habitat
specialists and support staff inArkansas and I work with a lot
of partners across the stateArkansas Game and Fish
Commission, turkey Federation,ducks Unlimited, nrcs, which is

(04:34):
the Natural ResourceConservation Service really any
outdoor conservation partner ornatural resource partner you can
think of we're partnering withto implement incentive programs
with private landowners to moveforward with our mission of
conserving upland wildlifehabitat in the state.
So really got to be a jack ofall trades with everything we
have going on.

TJ (04:54):
Yeah, that's a pretty good number of people for that kind
of organization in the state.
You guys cover it pretty wellwith that amount of people.

Ryan (05:00):
Yeah, we do.
We really are spread out acrossthe entire state of Arkansas.
We have a good number of us innorthern Arkansas, kind of the
northern half of the state inthe Ozarks, but we're starting
to expand our efforts in theOuachitas and in southwest
Arkansas and we have someoneover in the Delta, so we try to
cover everything.

TJ (05:20):
Cool Katrina.
What is your actual title?
I read grasslands something

Katrina (05:26):
yeah.
So it's a grasslandscoordinating wildlife biologist
and it's not on there but nowkind of have to emphasize the
grazing because we also haveanother grasslands coordinating
biologist and she does more ofour songbird monitoring,
grassland monitoring andvegetation monitoring.
She's kind of the coordinatorfor that.
So my position is kind ofspecific to native grazing.

(05:46):
So my specialty is like nativeforages, so big bluestem, little
bluestem, indian grass.
These are all native grasslandsystems that we should have here
but due to, you know, ourconversion to fescue and Bermuda
and other introduced forages, alot of those native grasses
either one got grazed out orthey just been completely
converted.
I cover the whole state.
My office is in Harrison and soI kind of coordinate that.

(06:07):
So there's, you know, costshare through NRCS that I work
with or just general landownersthat don't want cost share.
And then also we have a nativegrazing demonstration program
through the Arkansas Game andFish and we have 11 projects
throughout the state, all theway from north Arkansas one kind
of over, a little more central,and then some down in the South
Arkansas through the Game andFish.
You know they have agreed to gointo that program.

(06:29):
They'll get the grassestablished and then we're going
to do some weight gain trackingon those projects as well, as
we're going to use those fordemonstrations, to actually have
workshops and bring landownersout to those areas to kind of
show them you know what nativescan look like and like what we
can achieve on these.
So not only are they good forour livestock but they're also
good for our quail and othergrassland species, much better

(06:51):
than our introduced forages thatare solid forming grasses that
don't really have a lot ofbenefit for wildlife.

TJ (06:56):
That's awesome, and so those places have kind of already
been set up.
You have some of those thatpeople can go out and visit
already.

Katrina (07:01):
There are kind of in various stages.
We have a couple that are fullyestablished and they just
started grazing either last yearor this year and we're probably
going to have a workshop at oneof those, probably next spring.
We were going to have it thisspring but just we had a bunch
of stuff going on, so we kind ofpush it off to next year,
probably around May.
And then we have a few of themthat just got planted last year.

(07:23):
So they're still within anestablishment period and are not
grazing yet.
So they're kind of spread outacross the board different
stages but hopefully oncethey're all fully up and going
we'll start tracking data onthem and we'll be able to start,
you know, having thoseworkshops out there and really,
you know, get that ball rollingwith, you know, getting people
out and seeing natives forgrazing purposes and see what

(07:44):
kind of good benefits they canderive from that.

TJ (07:46):
Yeah, keep us posted on that , because I think that would be
something Daniel and I wouldlike to go check out sometime.
It would apply to my land too.
You guys have been out thereand so you've seen the fescue
and all the stuff that I've got.
That's non-native.

Ryan (07:58):
Yeah, absolutely.

Daniel (08:01):
Well, I was curious how did you all both get involved
with Quail Forever?

Katrina (08:04):
Yeah, so I was working as a part-time technician for
game and fish at the Petty JeanWMA down there kind of just a
little South of Russellville,and you know I was just kind of
a part-time person, so I wasn'tfull-time.
And you know I was reallywanting to get back to Northwest
Arkansas, cause that's whereI'm from.
I'm from a little town calledOsage.
Up there you kind of blink, youmiss it type place.

(08:24):
At the time I'd seen thisposition come through and I was
like oh, you know, I'm notqualified enough for it, I don't
think I'll apply.
And my supervisor at the timehe's like no, you qualify, you
need to apply.
So he pretty much forced meinto applying because I thought
I wasn't qualified.
And then for another positionwithin Game and Fish.
That was at Gene Rush, which isjust a little south of Harrison
, which is relatively close.

(08:45):
So I had already accepted thatposition at Gene Rush.
I'd been working there forabout three, four weeks when I
got called and said hey, youknow, we'd like to hire you for
Quail Forever.
Would you be willing to acceptit?
And I was like yeah, becausethat was full time.
And I was still, even thoughI'd moved to Gene Rush, I was
still part time.
I had kind of knew about QuailForever but I didn't really know
much about them so I hadn'teven really been, you know,

(09:10):
looking to work for them oranything.
But since I've been on, youknow, it's been really great.
And we joke that we're theQuail Forever family.
We're a cubby, because, like,we all really do try to help
each other and help ourlandowners for conservation, so
that's awesome.

Ryan (09:19):
Yeah, I remember when Katrina joined our team as a
farm bill biologist and now sheis working in the grasslands
grazing role that I used to have.
I started with quail forever inJuly of 2020.
I was hired as the grasslandscoordinating biologist.
Before that, I worked as aprivate lands biologist in

(09:42):
southeast Colorado for anorganization called Bird
Conservancy of the Rockies, andI worked in an NRCS office
working with private landownersto improve wildlife a rotational
grazing management plans thatwe're going to improve a native

(10:07):
mixed grass and short grassprairie systems for wildlife
while benefiting the forage fortheir their cattle.
So when this job opened up inArkansas for a grasslands
coordinating wildlife biologist,it it was in a different part
of the country that I'd neverbeen to before.
You know a different kind ofagriculture here.
The livestock industry isreally completely different from

(10:29):
out west to here in the south,and it was just a challenge that
I was excited about, so Iapplied and next thing you know,
I'm living in Arkansas.
Yeah, yeah, I'm glad to be here.

TJ (10:41):
Yeah, sure, we're glad to have you.

Daniel (10:46):
So one question we always ask is like how did y'all
get the love for the outdoors?
Where'd that start from?
Did it start earlier, later onin life?

Katrina (10:52):
For me it started very early on.
You know I grew up on a farm.
You know, grew up hunting,fishing, you know anything
outdoors.
Grandpa, he lived with us andso from a young age like I
didn't really have a babysitter,my grandpa was my babysitter.
We were always out chicken cowsor you know, we'd go turkey
hunting or something and hermushroom you know morel mushroom
hunting.
Of course this is the time ofyear for that.
So that's just kind of from ayoung age.

(11:14):
I just remember being outsideand enjoying anything about
being outside awesome yeah, yeah, same for me.

Ryan (11:21):
I grew up in Wyoming and all my family's still in Wyoming
, so that's kind of the perfectplace to grow up loving the
outdoors, and I grew up huntingand fishing and beaver trapping
with my grandpa.
I'd follow him around everywhere

TJ (11:34):
That'd be cool.

Ryan (11:35):
And you know in my mind what it meant to work in
wildlife was to be a game warden.
So like I just had that stuckin my head.
Then I went to college and wasopened up to this whole other
world within the wildlifecommunity.
Um, there's so many avenues youcan take in this career path.
And yeah, I love, uh, beingoutside, I love to camp, I love

(11:56):
to hike, I love bird watching.
Really, this was the perfectfit for that.

TJ (12:01):
Yeah, we were talking about a few episodes back that you
know, we really didn't know whenwe were growing up that it was
even a thing.
You know, we I'd seen gamewardens and that kind of stuff.
I never knew that that was acareer path option.
We just thought, you know, getin, work hard, do whatever it
was, and you couldn't doanything that you actually loved
or wanted to do.
You know, it just seemed likewe had to go do the thing to

(12:22):
make the American dream happenand that ended up being
collision repair for me.
Yeah.

Katrina (12:27):
When I initially told my family that I was going to go
to college for being, you know,a wildlife biologist or for
conservation, most of my familyis like, oh, you're going to be
a game warden.
I was like no, I'm going to gofor conservation, be a wildlife
biologist.
Like, oh so game warden.
I was like no.
So they were still of that samemindset, like the only thing
really out there you know that alot of people know about is
being a game warden.

(12:48):
There's so much more to it thanthat.

TJ (12:50):
It's cool the amount of opportunities that are opening
up in that area these days.
I wish you know.
Of course we're here now, sowho knew we would?
do this?

Daniel (12:57):
Yeah, no, it wasn't on my radar.

TJ (12:59):
Mine either.

Ryan (13:00):
Yeah, there's so many different like specialist type
positions to.
You know, if you want to focuson insects and pollinators, you
know we have a monarch andpollinator coordinator on staff.
If you want to focus onprescribed fire, I have a
prescribed fire coordinator onstaff.
If you want to focus on ongrazing and cattle agriculture,
you know we have a grazingspecialist on staff.
And all of those littlespecialist positions are working

(13:22):
towards the same common goal.
So really there's so manyavenues you can take.

Daniel (13:27):
So how does somebody get in contact with one of those,
like if they were wanting to dothe butterflies or whatever?

Ryan (13:33):
Yeah, well, you can follow us on Facebook.
That's probably the easiest wayto find us.
We're really active on ourFacebook page, quail Forever in
Arkansas, and you can just sendus a message through Facebook
Messenger.
But we also have our staff mapuploaded on the Arkansas Game
and Fish Private Lands Divisionpage so you can find Quail
Forever staff on that page aswell.

(13:54):
And, yeah, reach out to us.
We're happy to help anyone andeveryone.

TJ (14:00):
That's cool, so I didn't know there was all the different
positions within that.
That's really neat.
Last episode, or a few episodesback actually, we talked with
Tyler Savage from Arkansas Gameand Fish Commission about
habitat and the natural stateand how it's not so natural.
Do you guys agree with thatstatement that it's not like it
used to be?
It's not natural.

Katrina (14:20):
One hundred percent.
You know it's not due to anumber of different things but
largely you know we've had aconversion of our forest systems
due to lack of burning.
You know they've converted tomostly overgrown systems.
You know there are some areasin bottom lands where they
should be denser.
You know they wouldn't haveburned historically but a large
portion of Arkansas historicallywould have burned on about a
three to a five year rotationdue to either lightning strikes

(14:43):
in the dry part of the year.
Due to either lightning strikesin the dry part of the year or,
you know, when Native Americanswere on the landscape you know
they would start fires as theymigrated or also to help push
wildlife, you know, for huntingpurposes and stuff.
So you know it burned fairlyfrequently and with the lack of
that due to Smokey the Bear, youknow, back he did a really good
job of making people aware offire and negative aspects of it,

(15:03):
but he did too good of a jobbecause with that people became
afraid of fire and also, youknow, urbanization is a big
thing.
We have smaller tracts of landso that also makes burning
harder and as we've moved awayfrom burning our systems have
become overstocked.
In Arkansas we get a fair goodamount of rain and we have some
pretty decent soils in mostareas and so we really like to

(15:23):
grow stuff too.
And with that lack of fire andthose important times of the
year when it would have keptthat understory and our forest
systems open, it's just beenallowed to grow up into a thick
mess that we can't reallynavigate and from a forest
standpoint and a wildlifestandpoint that's like almost a
desert area.
So like you look at the forestfloor and you have nothing, but

(15:44):
you know six inches of leaflitter.
There's no cover for any kindof ground.
You know mammals or groundnesting birds, even your insects
are very limited.
So with the incorporation ofyou know getting back to burning
and thinning our forest systems, we can get that back more to a
natural state ecologically.
Historically we had, you know,open prairies which would have

(16:07):
been you know, big blue stem,little blue stem, you know a
whole bunch of wildflowerspecies and we've converted a
lot of those open areas tothings Bermuda, fescue, bahia
grass for cattle operations orhaying operations, and those are
all sod forming grasses whichare not beneficial to very many
of our insects and very littlesongbirds or any kind of

(16:29):
wildlife that will utilize thoseareas.
So we are very much not anatural state.

TJ (16:35):
What percentage of the state would you say is characterized
by non-native plants andhabitats?

Ryan (16:41):
It's hard to throw out a percentage, you know, because so
much of our state needsrestoration to get back to where
it could be.
I don't think there's anywherethat's really lost the native
potential.
We have a lot of pockets ofremnant prairie managed by
either TNC, which is the NatureConservancy, or Arkansas Natural

(17:02):
Heritage Commission, like TerraNoir, which is south of
Arkadelphia.
There's Baker Prairie inHarrison.
There's Railroad Prairie thatruns between Carlisle and Hazen.
These are remnant prairies thathave continued to receive fire
and if you go and wander throughthem you're going to see a huge

(17:24):
diversity of native grasslandplants and that tells you that
the surrounding areas aroundthat were also that at one point
in time.
Maybe their seed bank has beendisturbed or depleted, maybe the
surrounding woods around themhave grown up, like Katrina was
talking about.
There's no doubt that there's alot of non-native invasive
species everywhere in this state.

(17:44):
I mean, this is the perfecttime of the year to drive down
167 towards Pocahontas and youjust see trees covered in white
flowers and it's Bradford pear,or there's Chinese privet
everywhere, or Sericea lespedeza.
It seems like everywhere welook we're battling those
invasive species, but withinthose invasive species there are
remnants of the nativeecosystems there, and it's all

(18:07):
restorable.

TJ (18:07):
Yeah, so there is a little bit of hope in there, you think.

Ryan (18:10):
A lot of hope.

TJ (18:10):
Good Yep.

Daniel (18:12):
Prescribed burns so good , but like in neighborhoods like
kind of like ours here, is thateven possible to do?
How do you get those pockets?
Because there's tons of greenspace around housing and things.

Ryan (18:23):
I would say it's become increasingly difficult to burn
in urban areas.
There's a new burn act, newlegislation that passed in 2023
that requires you to be aqualified prescribed burner, and
there's a course that you cantake, offered by Game and Fish
and Arkansas Forestry Division,to become a qualified prescribed

(18:44):
burner.
So you definitely want to makesure you have that class.
Um, if you're going to bewriting a burn plan and
implementing fire in urban areaslike this really we see private
contractors take the lead on onburning these kinds of sites
you know it's there's just toomuch risk involved for you know
agencies and organizations to dothat.

(19:05):
A lot of times you have to getpermits from the city if you're
going to burn in urban areaslike this.
We have been working withAudubon Delta.
They are on the east side ofI-30, just south of the airport,
and they have some nice remnantglade areas that they want
quail forever to help burn andwe've committed to doing that

(19:28):
because it's a really coolsystem.
But we've had to jump throughsome hoops to get permits and
it's kind of a drawn out processto burn in urban areas.

Daniel (19:36):
Yeah, I could see that.

TJ (19:38):
So what would be some other tools that we could use in areas
like this that might thin outthe tree foliage?

Katrina (19:44):
In an urban area like this, like hack and squirt would
be a good method, but if you'regoing to thin it out, you need
to be able to burn it, becauseif you're thinning it without
burning it, you're just going toopen it up for sunlight to get
there, and then it's going togrow back up again, and so
burning it at the correct timeof year is going to be help to

(20:05):
maintain that system how itneeds to be.
So, on top of that, you coulddo cut and drop, you know, which
is similar to hack and squirt,except for you're actually going
to be cutting the tree downfully and then applying
herbicide to that stump yeah, ifyou want to dive into that a
little deeper, you can, becauseI don't think we've actually
discussed what hack and squirtis, and so our guests may not
even know.
Yeah, so hack and squirt for youusers that don't know what it
is.
Essentially you're going toeither use a hatchet or a
machete, or some people evenlike to use a chainsaw, and

(20:27):
you're going to effectivelygirdle that tree.
So that means you're just goingto hack down past that cambium
layer, the bark layer of thattree, all the way around it and
then generally you either have acheap little spray bottle you
can get at the dollar store orsomething you put your herbicide
in there or some people mighthave they have some fancy
injectable hatchets you can getand essentially, that girdle

(20:47):
line you're going to apply yourherbicide to that, because trees
that are generally under about12 inches in size at breath
height, they're going tore-sprout and so those
re-sprouts are what we want tokeep from having from that stump
, because it's kind of like youknow, you'll cut off the one
tree you're hacking, squirt andthen it'll resprout with 10
sprouts from that one tree.
So you want to eliminate thatfrom coming back.

(21:07):
No-transcript just too muchpreventing that from happening.

(21:33):
And, uh, cut and drops, like Isaid very similar.
I said instead of girdling thetree, you're going to completely
cut it down.
It's going to fall on theground and then you're going to
apply a herbicide to that stumpto prevent it from from
re-sprouting okay, so how hasthe dense overstory of trees and
cleaning out of fence rows,that sort of thing, affected
quail specifically?

Ryan (21:55):
yeah, with dense woodlands and forests you know, as
katrina mentioned, we've lost alot of the groceries on the
ground because there's nosunlight hitting the forest
floor.
Quail really need three things.
They need bunch grasses fornesting and just a little bit of
bunch grass.
We don't need a whole bunch.
Historically in our openprairie systems they were forb
and shrub dominated, but therecertainly were native bunch

(22:18):
grasses in those systems.
It's a very important part ofthe system.
So quail need bunch grasses fornesting.
They need forbs or nativewildflowers to produce two
things insects which pollinatethe flowers and they produce
seeds.
And then quail also need shrubsfor escape cover.
So if they have nesting habitat, a food resource and escape

(22:45):
cover, we're going to see morequail return to landscape as
well as all kinds of wildlifethat benefit from those systems.
We've lost a lot of that withour dense woods, our conversion
of grasslands in the state oreven something as simple as
cleaning up a messy fence row.
You know you eliminate thatshrubby habitat along that fence
row and all of a sudden thequail can't utilize that,

TJ (23:09):
yeah, you know I've been trying to clean up my land, and
fence rows is something that I'mconcerned about from what you
have said previously and now andyou know other people we've
talked to definitely make mewant to leave some of that, you
know.

Ryan (23:17):
Yeah, if you clean up your fence row, you know which is
perfectly reasonable.
You can do things like plantingnative shrubs on your property.
So plant them in pockets.
You know we like to say a 30 by50 square foot pocket of shrubs
.
Things like native wild plums,even blackberry, create perfect

(23:39):
escape cover and shrubby coverfor wildlife.

Katrina (23:42):
And even if you can't do a shrub planting, you know we
also do things called brushpiles, and when you think of a
typical brush pile you'rethinking of a big pile that's
all piled up.
We're talking about somethingslightly different.
So you know you want to getsome cedar trees that are decent
in size, you know, probablyeight inches or a little bit
bigger and you're going to makea very loosely stacked brush
pile with maybe three or four ofthem.

(24:03):
Shrubs are a permanent solution.
The brush piles are temporary.
You can always do those kind ofdesigned brush piles
sporadically to kind of helpoffer that escape cover in lieu
of having native shrubs.

Daniel (24:15):
What is the quail population like in Arkansas now?
I know, growing up I would seea few, but I've never seen just
a ton of quail anywhere.

Ryan (24:23):
Yeah, so you know I don't have any population numbers to
give.
Clint Johnson is the Game andFish Quail Coordinator.
He'd be a great person toinvite on to this podcast to
talk about quail population inthe state of Arkansas.
But what I will say is thatquail across their entire range
are declining prettydramatically.

(24:44):
Their entire range aredeclining pretty dramatically
and that's been the cause for alot of recent conservation
efforts, especially on privatelands, to improve habitat for
quail.
But those efforts are leadingto pockets of quail returning
and being restored and we areseeing that in Arkansas on as
little as 30 and 40 acreprojects.
If we are opening up the woodsand we're getting native

(25:07):
vegetation established on theground, more often than not
we're seeing quail that arewithin the vicinity of that,
find that and return to thosesites, and there's some really
great examples of that inArkansas.
Little Bayou WMA down south andeast of Monticello has had some
fantastic woodland andgrassland management on it and

(25:28):
we've been focusing on privatelands surrounding Little Bayou
WMA to expand that habitatconnectivity and we've seen
quail populations increase there, so much so that Game and Fish
had a permit quail hunt therefor the first time just this
past year.

TJ (25:45):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah, I think I read aboutsomething like that with Stone
Prairie near Camp Robinson aswell.

Ryan (25:51):
Stone Prairie is a perfect example.

TJ (25:54):
How closely does that correlate with like songbird
numbers and that sort of thing?
I know there's a lot of birdwatchers.
I saw a flock of golden finchthe other day, you know from the
window.
I was super happy about seeingthat.

Ryan (26:06):
Yeah, it's directly correlated.
You know there's a lot ofgrassland songbirds that nest on
the ground, so things likeeastern meadowlark might be one
that people are familiar with.
There are species likegrasshopper, sparrow, savannah,
sparrow, bachman, sparrow,eastern Kingbirds.
There's a whole suite ofgrassland songbirds that nest on

(26:26):
the ground that really requirethe exact same habitat that
quail need.
And so by focusing on quail askind of that umbrella species or
you know, we kind of use quailas that catch-all because people
hear quail and they latch ontothat word.
But in our minds we know thatwe're also benefiting the
songbirds that utilize thosesystems.

(26:48):
Grassland birds are one of thefastest declining suite of birds
and it's pretty alarming.
So there's really a call toaction for conservation agencies
and organizations to focus ongrassland restoration for
songbirds, and not onlysongbirds but pollinators.
We're seeing more native beespecies.
There's over 4 000 species,maybe closer to 5 000 species of

(27:13):
native bees.
Well, in north america I mightbe a little off on that figure,
but when we think of bees weprobably think of honeybees.
That's the term that comes toeveryone's name honeybees.
Well, there's only one speciesof honeybee, but there's over
4,000 species of native bees inthe continental US.
So by improving habitat, we'reimproving populations of native

(27:37):
pollinators that are really,really important.

TJ (27:40):
What percentage of prairie have we lost in Arkansas?
Do you know that number?

Katrina (27:45):
I would say and this is just a roundabout number, but I
would say we probably lost 98%of it, a very large percentage,
because the amount of prairie wehave left is very small areas
that have been protected.
You know, you might go out toan area and it might not be a
full-blown prairie anymore, butyou can find indicator species
that indicate that it used to bea prairie.
They might not be as good asthey used to be, but a lot of

(28:05):
that's still there and we canhelp bring that back and
regenerate it and restore itback to kind of what it was.
And we have areas that are inreally good shape, you know,
because they've been protectedand we need to keep those areas
like they are by managing them.

Ryan (28:19):
Yeah, you know, a lot of the Ozarks are intact still.
The Ozarks have grown up intodense forests but they're still
intact.
So with hack and squirt or cut,stump thinning and a little
prescribed fire, especially onthe south facing slopes in the
Ozarks, all of thosehistorically would have been
open woodland or savannas, whichare also grasslands.

(28:41):
You know they're grasslandswith trees growing on them, but
sparse trees.
Those systems are still there,they're just hidden and that's
where the restoration work isreally important.
We can restore those systems.
It's just going to take sometime and effort.

Daniel (28:57):
What is the pushback on restoring those?
Is it just like save the treesand don't want to get rid of
them?

Ryan (29:02):
Yeah, and I think we have to tread lightly here, you know,
but there's a lot of folks thatsee trees and they love trees
you know, there's a lot ofeffort to plant trees.
from my perspective, we don'tneed to be planting trees in a
state like arkansas very often,because there are trees all the
way around us.
We have way too many trees.
We need to be thinning our, ourwoods, woods where appropriate.

(29:23):
You know, there are a lot ofsystems in Arkansas that
naturally were closed, canopyhardwoods or closed forest, and
it's important to be able topick out where those sites are
too, because those needprotected, managed appropriately
.
But then there's the sites thatneed thinned, and they would
have been open woodlands orsavannas, and for a lot of folks

(29:45):
they don't remember seeing thaton the landscape.
So if they don't remember it,they only think of it as what it
looks like right now.
Then to them that's what itlooked like 100, 200, 300 years
ago, and so they have a hardtime coming to the decision of
cutting those trees out.

Daniel (30:02):
Yeah, I grew up in the Ozarks and it was closed canopy
forest and that's what I thoughtwas natural.
But as you dig into it you'relike this isn't natural at all.

Ryan (30:10):
Yeah, there's a really cool tool that's open to the
public.
It's called Web Soil Survey andyou can just type that into
Google and you can.
In Web Soil Survey you can drawa little polygon of your
property or wherever you want tolook at, but it will generate a
soils map and report for youand it will also generate an

(30:31):
ecological site description andin those documents it will give
you a good idea of what thenatural reference state of that
that community would have beenyeah yep yeah, we'll link that
on the show notes for sure.

Daniel (30:44):
So I think to make like a huge change in Arkansas, you'd
have to get, you know, privatelandowners on board, because
most of the land is owned byprivate.
So how do y'all help out withthem?
Like if I went and bought someland, I think it's all natural.
I'm like, well, I need tochange this up.
It's quite expensive and whoknows where to start.
There's so much information outthere.

(31:09):
How do y'all help kind of figurethat out?

Katrina (31:10):
Yeah, so there's a handful of different things that
we do.
So we're partners with NRCS andArkansas Game and Fish
Commission and they have privatelands, biologists as well.
We can come out to yourproperty, we can offer
assistance.
So, just in general, if you'rejust needing recommendation and
don't want cost share, we canwrite you a management plan.
Or if you're somebody that doeswant cost share, there's a
simple application that willhelp you through you know, or
make that management plan willhelp you through that whole

(31:31):
process of getting that.
And there's a little bit ofpaperwork involved.
But other than the paperworkand a little bit of waiting, you
know it's well worth it Ifmoney is a barrier for people.

TJ (31:39):
I know that there's a lot of agencies or businesses that
want to consult with people.
How much does it cost toconsult with Quail Forever?

Katrina (31:46):
It's 100% free.
So whether it's Quail Foreveror Game and Fish coming out or
NRCS, it doesn't cost anythingfor us to come out there and
take a look and go over yourproperty with you.

Daniel (31:56):
Yeah that's super awesome.

TJ (31:57):
Yeah, it's like why on at that point.

Daniel (31:59):
Yeah.
So I'm just curious, with allthe doge cutting costs and
everything, has that affectedthe funding for anything that
y'all know of so far?

Ryan (32:13):
I think that it's safe to say that a lot of folks in the
conservation world right nowwhether you're state or federal
or nonprofit are feeling impactsfrom budgetary cuts.

Daniel (32:20):
Okay.

Ryan (32:20):
Yep, you know we're navigating through that.
It seems like more stresscoming out of it than anything
right now.
I mean a lot of uncertainty,yeah, but we're definitely
navigating through that.
It's a challenge for sure

Daniel (32:31):
yeah, I feel like there's a lot of thoughts that
it's maybe not as important asit is and so it kind of gets put
on the back burner, or could beeasily put on the back burner
if a lot of people aren't aware.
It's really needed and it'simportant for our country to
have.

Ryan (32:44):
Yeah, I mean I think, no matter who you are, you want
clean air to breathe and cleanwater to drink and healthy plant
and wildlife systems.
I mean, that's kind of whatmakes us all coexist together on
this planet, and at the sametime, we want thriving working
lands and agricultural systemstoo, because that's how we eat.

(33:06):
So we've got to find a way todo it sustainably.
And there's this concept ofworking lands for wildlife.
Working lands for wildlife is aprogram that we work to help
implement, and really it'shelping working land systems
whether you're a cattle farmeror a row crop farmer implement
your ag practices, but doing itin a way that's benefiting

(33:28):
natural resources.
Yeah, and I think that's reallyimportant.

TJ (33:31):
Yeah, for sure We've got to have both.

Ryan (33:32):
Yep,

TJ (33:33):
what about?
Let's just say that somebodydoesn't have any acreage.
They live in an apartment.
Are there ways that you guysneed volunteers to help ever, or
projects that people can getinvolved with?

Katrina (33:43):
Yeah, there are.
So as a nonprofit, quailForever, we have chapters across
the state and essentially thesechapters are all volunteer led.
And how many do we have across?

Ryan (33:53):
We have nine chapters in Arkansas.

Katrina (33:56):
Yeah, so we have nine chapters.
Some of those are fairly new,some of those have been in
operation for a little while andessentially those are locally
led community chapters and wewill go out and do community
projects.
So sometimes these chapters, wehave banquets that raise money
and we use those funds locallyto help plant natives in city
parks.
We've done trash cleanups,we've done other things.

(34:19):
In some natural areas we mighthave people that volunteer and
go help do burns around some ofour urban areas.
So they're really good.
If you're interested and youdon't have any property and you
want to still help ourenvironment and get involved in
something locally, look up yourlocal Quail Forever chapter.

TJ (34:34):
And where can they find that ?

Ryan (34:36):
So every local chapter also has a Facebook page.
But also you can go to Googleand type in find my local Quail
Forever chapter and then youplug in your zip code and it
will tell you which chapter isclosest to you.
And we welcome anyone to joinour volunteer chapters and to
your point of working with thosefolks or communities that maybe

(35:00):
don't have their own propertyor they live in an apartment.
Those folks are very importantto reach to.
There's information that we canprovide to them.
Maybe they have kids that go toschool.
You know we have this programcalled Milkweed in the Classroom
.

TJ (35:16):
Okay.

Ryan (35:17):
And we work with elementary schools, particularly
elementary school teachers, toget the milkweed in the
classroom kit so they can raisetheir own milkweed and milkweed
is the host plant for themonarch butterfly and so just
teaching kids about that processalone, that there are specific
plants needed by specificimportant pollinators, and then

(35:41):
they can go out and plant thatmilkweed into, you know, a
native system.

TJ (35:45):
Yeah.

Ryan (35:46):
It's incredibly important.

TJ (35:47):
So if we've got teachers listening or something like that
, how can they get a hold ofthat kind of kit?

Ryan (35:51):
Yeah, have them reach out to someone with Quail Forever.
They can reach out to medirectly or to Katrina.
They can go on our Facebookpage and reach out to us.
Quail Forever in Arkansas.
We would love to help teachersget the milkweed in the
classroom started.

TJ (36:07):
That's super cool

Daniel (36:08):
I think kids are naturally love that kind of
thing.
Anyways, as you can see out thewindow there, my middle kiddo
she has plants everywhere yes,wildflowers planted out.
I don't think they're going togrow in our yard, but you know
she's got them sprinkledeverywhere.

Ryan (36:20):
So yeah, we do a lot of career fairs or outreach to kids
.
One of my colleagues who workswithin RCS in Conway County out
of Moralton, every year shehosts a career fair for high
school students and collegestudents and she'll gather all
of these conservationorganizations or natural

(36:40):
resource organizations.
We have as many as 200 kidscome through and go to each
booth and talk about you knowhow do I get into your career
field?
What?
What path did you take?
We set up a table there andtalk about how to get into
wildlife, habitat management andand you know how did we get
into the jobs that we are in?

(37:01):
And what college education dowe have?
And I think those kinds ofprograms are really important.

TJ (37:06):
I wish that I would have known about something like that
when, when I was you know of theage to learn, yeah.
So we kind of set up this thingfor you guys three scenarios of
habitat possibilities, and soone thing that we've been
talking about a lot on thepodcast is like from when to
seal to a thousand acres.
We want our listeners to beable to participate in habitat.

(37:30):
So let's just say that maybeI'm in an apartment and all I
have is a windowsill, or maybeI'm in a suburban setting and
all I have is a flower bed.
Is there anything that we cando to benefit native species?

Katrina (37:43):
Yeah, anything from a windowsill to a thousand acres,
we can definitely find somethingthat can benefit our wildlife.
So on the smaller side, if youjust have a windowsill or a
small backyard garden, you knowyou could plant some milkweed
that's going to help benefitmonarch butterflies, or you can
plant another native species.
A lot of our native pollinatorspecies are specialists, so
there might only be a handful ofplants that they can pollinate

(38:05):
and utilize, whereas you know,like honeybees that are
non-native, they're generalistsso they can pollinate just about
anything.
So if we can provide some ofthose native plants that are for
our specialist native species,we're going to be helping them
out.
Whether it's one plant or it'sa small backyard garden area, we
can plant some of those nativepollinator species also on a not

(38:26):
a garden area.
But if you just have a backyardin general, you know a lot of
those native bees species aresolitary nesting and they nest
in leaf litter and stuff.
So you know, I know everybodywants to have their backyard and
they want it to look reallynice and neat and clean up those
leaves in the fall.
But sometimes if you can leavethose leaves laying on the
ground just a little bit longerthan you generally would that

(38:46):
would allow those, those bees,that kind of nest in that type
of stuff to have, you know,refuge through the winter and
then come, you know your kind ofspringtime, you can go ahead
and clean that stuff up beforeyour grass and stuff starts
coming up.

Ryan (38:58):
You know those small scale properties 10 acres, 15 acres,
even three or four acres still alot of wildlife value there.
I mean wildlife live in urbanand small scale areas as well.
I mean I have monarchs that layeggs on my milkweed and
sherwood in my front yard andthat's just as important.

Katrina (39:17):
On the larger scale.
If you're somebody that has alot of acreages, there's all
kinds of stuff you can do.
We have a lot of systems inArkansas that are still not
rotational grazing.
We have people that you knowthey have the whole open gate
policy so they might have one ortwo pastures but they're
predominantly grazing those yearround.
You know you might have a warmseason with Bermuda or Dallas

(39:38):
grass and then you might havesome fescue and you might swap
once or twice a year.
But that's about it.
But we would really like toencourage people to do
rotational grazing because thathas a lot of really good
ecosystem benefits.
You know you're going to havebetter soil, less compaction,
healthier root systems on yourgrasses.
If we can go ahead and convertsome of that over to natives,
we're really going to be helpingour wildlife.

(39:59):
And also, if we just kind ofhave, as we're doing, the
rotational system, a lot ofpeople like to keep their
livestock out of our forestedareas or riparian areas.
For one, you can keep a bettereye on your livestock so it's
easier to check on them.
But also by allowing thoserefuges or riparian areas where
we don't have cattle or sheep orgoats just going down to our
creeks or streams and mucking upthat bank that's going to help

(40:21):
that water quality in thoseareas.
And, like mucking up that bank,that's going to help that water
quality in those areas.
And also we can provide ariparian area.
We're going to have bettererosion control because we're
going to allow some of thosespecies to grow up and maintain
that bank and keep it fromeroding down.
So there's tons of differentstuff we can do, whether it's
small scale or large scale.

TJ (40:37):
So when you're saying rotational grazing, you're
talking about cross-fencing andletting your cattle graze on a
certain parcel for so long.
Yeah, and then what aboutnative grasses for grazing?
I've seen some research thatsay that some of our native
grasses can put pounds on cattlejust as quick as you know the
species that we brought inthinking we were helping them
out.
So do you guys have anystatistics on that kind of thing

(40:58):
?

Katrina (40:59):
In Arkansas in general we don't have a lot of you know,
any papers or anything, butthere is a lot you know, for
Missouri university of Tennesseehas a lot of really great
research out Missouri especially.
They're part of the Ozarks,they're very similar to most of
Arkansas and so is a largeportion of Tennessee.
There's been research in those.
You know the beginning, likeMay, june, those months, like
you can gain anywhere, generallytwo to three pounds a day's,

(41:25):
pretty good, you know.
And of course as you get alittle later into the season the
quality of the forage decreasesa little bit, just like with
any forage, and so, like your,your average daily gain goes
down a little bit, but it'sstill without having any
supplemental.
You know sources of feed andstuff.
Some of those gains surpass alot of our introduced forages or
are on par with some of thoseintroduced forages.

Ryan (41:44):
There's a landowner in Southern Missouri His name is
Steve Klubine, okay, and he wasa biologist his entire career in
promoting native forages forlivestock and when he retired he
went into his own little cattlebusiness and he bought some
stocker cattle and heestablished native forages and I
toured his property right whenI started in 2020 and he created

(42:06):
this little pamphlet.
It's a little typed up kind ofset of protocols that he
followed on his property and Istill have that today.
I always refer back to itbecause it shows what species he
planted, what the weight of hisstockers are when he buys them,
what weight they are when hetakes him to market and for him

(42:27):
and his operation, he wasgaining four pounds a day, wow
in May and it would reduce toabout three, three and a half in
June, two and a half to threein July, you know, in about two
pounds in August and it woulddecrease as the summer went on,
but that's pretty impressive forstocker cattle to gain that

(42:48):
much on native forages.

TJ (42:49):
Yeah, so we've got good gains drought resistance and
habitat for other species.
So why?
not right

Ryan (42:55):
.
What more do you want?

TJ (42:57):
So I think that leads us into another topic is like how
do we get a hold of that kind ofseed?
You know, let's say that wedon't have the seed bank there.
How do we?

Ryan (43:06):
get a hold of those natives.
Yeah, so quail forever has aseed store, and you know.
You can go right onto google Ikeep just saying that but just
type in quail forever seed storeand we have specific mixes that
we have curated for, whetherit's grazing, so, so more grass,

(43:27):
heavy mixes for livestocksystems, or we have seed mixes
developed for each ecoregion inArkansas.
Whether you're in the Ozarks orthe Gulf Coastal Plain or the
Delta, wherever you are, we havea curated seed mix.
You can buy that right from ourquail forever seed store.
But we also partner with somegreat seed companies.
So there's Hamilton NativeOutpost in southern Missouri.

(43:49):
If you go to Hamilton's YouTubepage, hamilton Native Outpost,
they have so many cool videosabout their native pollinator
plantings and grazing plantings.
Roundstone Seed Company isanother one that we partner with
.
In fact Audubon Delta has alittle native seed program where
they work with farmers orproducers to plant ecotype

(44:11):
specific seed so they might workwith the landowner to plant a
monoculture of ecotype littlebluestem.
Then that landowner can harvestthat seed and take it to
Roundstone.
Landowner can harvest that seedand take it to Roundstone and
Roundstone will include thatecotype little blue stem in seed
mixes that people buy forArkansas.
So it's a really cool, coolprogram.

(44:31):
So Hamilton, roundstone, starSeed I mean there's a lot of
great seed companies that wepartner with.

Katrina (44:37):
Yeah, and I would just add if you're somebody that's
wanting to plant natives on yourproperty whether it's for
pollinators or for a grazingsystem it takes a little bit to
get those established.
It's not just as simple asthrow it out there and it will
grow.
So I highly recommend that yougo on to, you know, find a
biologist on the Quail Foreverwebsite or contact your local
NRCS office.

(44:58):
Get a biologist to come outthere and take a look at the
area and really make somesite-specific recommendations
for planting that area, whetherit's for pollinators or for
grazing.
So that way you have the bestchance for success, because that
native seed can be a little onthe expensive side.
So you want to make sure you'reputting good effort into where
your money is going to get itestablished.

TJ (45:19):
Yeah, I recently bought some seed from you guys for
Valentine's Day for my wife.
Nice, she would have wantedsome wildflower seeds, so we got
that for her.
So what would be some othertools that you guys would say
that we haven't mentionedbesides like prescribed fire
planting natives and maybe hackand squirt, are there any other
things like that that we can useon the landscape to help shape

(45:39):
it?

Ryan (45:41):
I would say, if you're going to be planting pollinator
mixes, make sure you're plantingnative species.
Make sure that there arespecies that are going to grow
in your ecoregion.
There's five main ecoregions inArkansas, but within that you
can kind of subdivide those.
You definitely want to plantthe native species that will
grow there and were therehistorically.
So paying careful attention towhat seed mix you're putting out

(46:04):
on your property and that'strue for small scale, or, you
know, like the windowsill peopleas well, you can go to the
store and buy a little packet ofwildflowers and they probably
have cosmos and zinnias andnon-native stuff in there, you
know.
So make sure you get a nativeseed packet.
Seed packet A lot of non-nativeinvasive species.

(46:24):
Sericea lespedeza is a big one.
It's a woody, leguminousinvasive species and it's
incredibly hard to kill.
It's also incredibly resilient.
It produces a lot of seed.
A lot of birds and quail willeat the seeds of Sericea
lespedeza, but there's nonutrition in the seeds and a lot

(46:45):
of times they will be full.
Their crops are full butthey're going to starve.
And not only that.
Sericea lespedeza spreads veryquickly.
If you mow it or you burn it atthe wrong time, you're going to
make it worse.
So you know we do a lot oftargeted herbicide work.
Herbicides are a reallyimportant and effective tool if
you follow the label and usethem at the right times at the

(47:08):
appropriate rates.
We apply a lot of herbicide toSericea lespedeza species like
Johnson grass.
That's an introduced,non-native aggressive grass that
I think slips a lot of people'smind, but we have a lot of
Johnson grass in the state ofArkansas so there's specific
herbicides we apply to getcontrol of some of those
introduced species.

TJ (47:26):
What would you say to people who are concerned about using
herbicide?
I'm scared of it a little bit.
I'm not going to lie.

Ryan (47:31):
Yeah, yeah, that's a common question that we get all
the time.
The most important thing thatyou need to recognize is that
we've come a long way in the useof herbicides.
There's a lot of research thatgoes into the effective
application of herbicides, therisks that are associated with
using herbicides, and you reallyneed to follow the label.

(47:53):
That's the most important thing.
When you get a jug of herbicide, there's going to be a big fat
label stuck right to the side ofit.
Rip it off and read it.
That's what I encourage all ofmy staff to do.
We do trainings on this.
In fact, you can get apesticide applicator's license
in Arkansas, but read the labeland apply the appropriate rates
for the vegetation that you'retrying to spray, and you know

(48:16):
labels have a whole list ofspecies in them that that
herbicide will effectively treat.
Usually, if you spray less ormore than what's in that label,
you're going to have a resultthat you don't like.
We have so many non-nativeinvasive species in Arkansas
that it's a necessary tool thatwe need to apply accurately to

(48:37):
get ahead of some of ourchallenging introduced
non-native species that aretaking over the state.

TJ (48:42):
Yeah, and I don't think you realize how bad it is until you
get out the app and go aroundjust your property and look.
I think when you guys werethere we saw that at least 50%
of what I had on my property wasnon-native species, that's
crazy which was scary to me.

Ryan (48:57):
Yeah, but I also remember walking on the very top of your
mountain and I saw a bottlebrush grass.
That is a really cool nativerocky glady grass Right and that
was there historically and thattells us a lot about, you know,
the seed bank that's stillintact up there.

TJ (49:16):
Talk about seed bank for a second, just because I know you
told me that we were talking 50years plus, maybe sometimes that
the seed bank can stay intact.

Ryan (49:23):
Or longer.
Yeah, I mean native seed cansit in the soil for decades, a
hundred years or more, and withthose right management
conditions, if you run a fireacross it at the right time,
those seeds will germinate.
A lot of areas still have thatseed bank intact.
Maybe they've been planted intofescue but they've never been

(49:45):
tilled.
Understanding the agriculturaluse of your property, you know,
dating decades back, is reallyimportant.
Because if it's gone throughperiods of tillage, it's been
put into cotton or or corn oryou know other row crops, then
maybe that seed bank's depleted.
But if it's, if it's just hadfescue interseeded into it,
that's really easy to treat.

(50:05):
We can spray the fescue in thedormant season when it's green
all of the good stuff is isdormant and then run a fire
through it and that seed bank isintact and it's going to
restore a lot more quickly thansomething that's been tilled
over and over again.

Katrina (50:21):
And kind of the same thing in our forest systems.
You know we have especially upin, you know, the Ozarks.
We have a lot of glades and soa lot of people like to call
them cedar glades.
Well, they're not a cedar glade, they're only a cedar glade is
because with lack of firethey've been easily overcome by
cedars, because they can grow inthose areas that are rocky and
have thinner soils and cedars doa very good job at growing

(50:44):
there very fast.
But if you were to remove allthose cedars and then run a fire
through those areas, those seedbanks generally are very intact
and some of those glades canhave over three, 400 species of
native wildflowers on thoseglades.
Everything's restoring.
But glades are probably one ofthe fastest returns you get and
if there's a ton of cedar youneed to make sure you remove

(51:04):
that or do it in stages becauseit'll burn too hot.
But as long as you remove thatadequately and run a fire you
have a very fast turnaround onthe species that you can see in
those areas.

TJ (51:15):
Yeah, for sure.

Ryan (51:17):
South of the Arkansas River and in South Arkansas we
see a lot of dense, loblollypine plantations, and the timber
industry is incrediblyimportant, but we see a lot of
pine plantations that areplanted at 600 plus trees per
acre planted at 600 plus treesper acre and that is pretty

(51:38):
alarming when we're talkingabout biological deserts and
what that creates on thelandscape.
There's no wildlife value tothat at all, you know.
So we have an effort in SouthArkansas called the Open Pine.
Initiative.
What we're doing is working withfolks who primarily have pine
plantations, but also hardwoodstands as well, to reduce the
basal areas of those pineplantations, to open woodland

(52:00):
and trying to encourage likethat happy medium between still
having timber value on yourproperty, which is incredibly
important, but also increasingthe value of wildlife habitat in
some of those plantations.

TJ (52:11):
So in that, scenario are they coming in and they're
spacing them out further fromthe start, or are they coming in
and thinning them?

Ryan (52:16):
That's what we're trying to do.
It's a challenge, you know, toconvince anyone to plant a pine
plantation at 350 trees per acreas opposed to 700 trees per
acre.
It's a big mind shift, butwe're working on trying to show
the benefits of doing thingslike that yeah, yeah, so there's
programs out there that payfarmers to plant pine trees,

(52:37):
though, right yeah, there is.
You can do tree establishmentthrough nrcs.
Yeah, and there's a specificset of standards and guidelines
that you have to follow.

Daniel (52:46):
Are they doing them tight like that, or?
Uh that seems counterproductiveif we are

Ryan (52:52):
well.
So there's a whole range thatyou can plant, but, yes, there
are programs that allow you toplant fairly dense stands of
pine Yep.
And again, it's a challengethat we're trying to navigate
carefully, but for the most part, we're wanting to see a shift
to make open pine habitats.

TJ (53:10):
You know I planted the 10,000 shortleaf pine trees in
my place after you guys came Yepand I've seen several cost
share programs for plantingshortleaf pines.

Ryan (53:18):
That's a really good point and you know.
I just want to clarify loblollyis a native tree.
Historically it would haveoccurred in lower drainage areas
and in the Gulf Coastal Plainthere were certainly loblolly
communities, but it's beenreally engineered to grow tall
and straight and be plantedreally close together.

(53:39):
We often forget about shortleafpine, which is a very important
native pine tree in Arkansas,that is, in our Ozark and
Ouachita systems.
There's also timber value toshortleaf pine.
So this mindset change fromplanting loblolly to shortleaf
is slow to catch on, but we'restarting to make some headway
there and we have a lot of greathardwood and shortleaf systems

(54:02):
and it's important to preservethose big old, large shortleaf
pines that are still on thelandscape as well.

TJ (54:08):
And you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I've seen a
lot of good quail habitat in theshortleaf pine savannas.
It looks really cool and seemsto hold a lot of quail, from
what I've seen.

Katrina (54:17):
Yeah, if they're properly managed, you can still
find quail in those, becausethey're open enough they have
enough vegetation.

Ryan (54:24):
Yeah, the US Forest Service manages some national
forest ground south of Waldronit's kind of known as the pine
bluestem restoration site andthey have a shortleaf system
there that they've done a lot ofrestoration on A lot of quail
there, a lot of red cockadedwoodpecker and brown-headed
nuthatch.
Those are species that rely onshortleaf systems.

(54:45):
Again, that gets back to it'smore than just quail.
There's these important birdspecies that actually need
shortleaf to thrive.
There's a lot of importantthings we can do in those those
systems as well awesome.

TJ (54:58):
I want to kind of leave you guys with the one we didn't
really address at the front end,like we do sometimes.
Do you guys have any memoriesfrom the outdoors uh, maybe
growing up or as an adult thatreally stand out to you?

Katrina (55:10):
yeah, one in particular , just because I grew up, you
know, at a very young age doingeverything with my grandpa, and
this time of year in particularis just morel mushroom hunting.
And I can remember from thetime I was old enough to go out
with him, walk on my own in thewoods, of anytime in the spring.
It's sort of warming up orgetting nice spring days.
I'd be like when are we goingto go mushroom hunting?
You know, when are we going togo?
And my grandpa, he told he'slike well, because I was a

(55:33):
jabberbox as a little kid, likeany other little kid, he told me
that he's like well, we got tobe quiet when we go mushroom
hunting Because if you talkthey're going to hear you and
they're not going to come out.
Well, as you know, a littlethree, four or five year old, I
took that as the law, like well,I just realized it was just my
grandpa didn't want me to talk.
Yeah.

Daniel (55:53):
Just enjoy the nature.

Katrina (55:54):
That just makes me.
Every time I think about thatjust makes me kind of laugh.
I just went out on Sunday,found about 45, 50 morels on
Sunday.
Just makes me think of mygrandpa and being out in the
woods and him telling me thatGood memories of my grandpa.

TJ (56:07):
What's your preferred way to cook those up?

Katrina (56:09):
Fried

Ryan (56:17):
I think that's everybody's go-to.
You got any stories, ryan?
Yeah, I followed my grandpaaround, you know, in the
mountains, and he was a bigbeaver trapper.
A lot of people view beaver as anuisance species and in some
ways they are.
They can do a lot of damage butthey also do a lot of good too.
You know, they're likeecosystem engineers and my
grandpa always viewed it thatway.
I'd follow him around and he'dtrap for a lot of ranchers in
Southern Wyoming that were, youknow, damming up the river,

(56:39):
damming up their irrigationditches for their crops, and
that was a big problem, you know.
But then we'd go fishing atbeaver ponds and those ponds
would have healthy troutpopulations and and frogs and
amphibians and and just reallycool little pockets in the
mountains and they were therebecause of beavers.
And so just watching my grandpasee those systems and think of

(57:02):
it from two different lenses,like there's a time and place
for beavers on the landscape andthey do really important
ecosystem engineer work, butthen also from an agricultural
perspective there are times whenthey're problematic, and so his
view was always like trying tosee the full picture of any
situation and that's what I've Ithink I've taken away.
And.
I try to do in my job now is seethe full picture.

(57:24):
I don't try to be narrow mindedon any one thing.
Yeah, that's super cool.

Daniel (57:28):
We need that more in general, everywhere.

TJ (57:32):
You guys have anything upcoming for for quail forever
that you want to give a shoutout for?

Katrina (57:38):
uh, yeah, we're always doing stuff.
I would say, uh, you know, thebest way to find out what we're
doing is, you know, get on ourfacebook page.
Quail forever in arkansas,morgan metter.
She's our facebook coordinatorand she does a great job of
getting information out there.
We have cool stories that weshare monthly on there of you
know success stories.
June is a really big month forus across the state.

(57:59):
There's a National PollinatorDays in June and we've kind of
turned it into a NationalPollinator for Arkansas for the
month.
So we do events all throughoutJune across the state in various
places and we'll have workshops, could indoors, could be
outdoors.
We'll do prairie walks.
Last year we had one of ourbiologists and a really cool
evening firefly walk.
So we have a lot of cool eventsand I would say that's the best

(58:21):
way to find out about them isjust, you know, get on our
facebook page and check that outif you guys don't have anything
else, I think we're good, Ithink we've said everything that
I can think of you know we sureappreciate you guys coming out
and making the way all the waydown here to be with us and
stuff yeah, absolutely it's beenfun.

Ryan (58:39):
This is a great, great thing that you guys are doing
and it's going to get a lot ofgood information out to people.

TJ (58:44):
Yeah hopefully we can get some traction with you know our
listeners and get the word out.

Ryan (58:49):
We'll certainly share it on our social media for you guys
, we would appreciate

Katrina (58:53):
that, yeah, we appreciate the opportunity to
talk a little bit about what wedo.

TJ (58:56):
Yeah, and hopefully this is not the last time you guys are
with us.

Katrina (58:59):
We have a lot of specialists.
I'm sure they'd all love tocome and talk about a little bit
what they do.
They're all.
We're all a little bitdifferent.

TJ (59:05):
Send them our way, yeah.

Daniel (59:15):
Thanks guys.
Hey, if this episode made youthink of someone, could you?
Share it with them real quick.
That's one of the best ways tohelp the show grow

TJ (59:18):
well, folks.
That wraps up another episodeof the natural obsession podcast
.
As always, we'd like to thankyou for listening.
If you'd like to hear moreepisodes, get in contact with us
or learn more about daniel andI and why we do this, visit our
website at natob.
co.
That's N-A-T-O-B, dot C-O.