FRANKLIN COUNTY, Pa. — It's been since at least the early 2000s since Northern Bobwhite Quails flew in the skies of Pennsylvania. Several were introduced Tuesday at The Letterkenny Army Depot in Greene Township, Franklin County.
"We got the habitat in place now," Letterkenny Army Depot Natural Resources Manager Matt Miller said. "We're very excited to get it back on the landscape here."
The birds were once in all 67 counties across the Keystone State before being deemed locally extinct from habitat loss.
"As our land management practices and agriculture was modernized, quail habitat declined and so too did the quail population," Pennsylvania Game Commission Biologist Andrew Ward said during Tuesday's ceremonies.
Work at the site began several years ago in 2017, when the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) and the Depot began a partnership to start doing the habitat work, which included clearing invasive brush and conducting prescribed fires.
Having once been all over the Commonwealth, the quails now only reside where they've been introduced in Franklin County.
"We are the only bobwhite quail focus area in the state currently," Miller said. "We're trying to get a sustainable population built back up to potentially move to other counties in the state."
Birds from down the East Coast are being brought to Pennsylvania.
"We've released birds from Virginia and Kentucky so far, this year, and then today we'll be releasing birds from Florida," Miller said prior to Tuesday's release. "I believe it'll be about 74 birds total."
The project pushes the possibility that a sustainable population of Northern Bobwhite Quails could make a comeback and have benefits to the state.
"The Bobwhite Quail is a game bird species, but it's also important to all other Pennsylvanians like our birders," Miller said.