FORT SMITH -- A golf course may the last place to look for quail.
Yet nearly every golf course contains rough spaces, which add a degree of difficulty to the game. With a little forethought and planning, these unkempt spaces also can provide critical habitat for many wildlife species such as quail.
The superintendent of the Ben Geren Golf Course in Fort Smith decided a few years ago to change his management approach to maintaining the course. "Roughs" were strategically converted to native grasses and wildflowers, which require much less maintenance than introduced species once they are established.
"Grasses like big bluestem and little bluestem are very drought tolerant and require little to no nutrients added to the soil because they are already adapted to the conditions," said Levi Horrell, assistant regional supervisor for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission at its Beaver Lake Regional Office.
"They also improve local water quality by increased filtration and less fertilizer runoff. In the case of Ben Geren, the restoration plan has even been thought out in such a way that there is connectivity between native patches, allowing wildlife to more feasibly move across the course."
Bobwhite Quail are just one species that has already responded to the restoration. Quail not only are game animals that have experienced significant declines in recent years, but they are indicators of habitat quality.
Wildflowers that produce cover and forage for quail also support a wide variety of songbirds and even butterflies such as the monarch.
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's Acres For Wildlife program can provide technical assistance, seed and herbicide to restore native vegetation on private land. In this case, assistance was provided to the Ben Geren Golf Course to support its efforts to restore portions of the property. In addition to the northern bobwhite restoration, the land's historical purpose played a key role in its restoration.
"The property is situated on what was once part of the Massard Prairie," Horrell said. "This prairie has now essentially been developed over and looks nothing like it once did. As a result, many wildlife and plant species that were native to the area are now either gone or increasingly hard to find."
One flower species in the area, Nuttall's pleatleaf, is so rare that Ben Geren is one of only a handful of places in the state where it is known to be found.
Sports on 03/20/2018