"Private landowners are the single most important group because the fate of the bobwhite hinges on their land-use practices. There is not, and will not be, enough public land on which to unilaterally meet the habitat objectives."

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Stewardship Program and the Stewardship Incentives Program, both of which are ideally suited to encourage the management of private, non-industrial forests for quail. Both programs are severely under-funded.The national forest management plans likewise could contribute by placing priority on providing multipurpose early-successional habitats for bobwhites, loggerhead shrikes, red-cockaded woodpeckers and numerous other declining species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceÕs Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program has incentive money and a technical staff on the ground to help private landowners provide wildlife habitats. The new Landowner Incentive Program and other available grant monies, if considerate of bobwhite habitat needs, could support bobwhite habitat restoration projects. Numerous private and public foundations are receptive to project proposals to restore habitats and ecosystems for the mutual benefit of both bobwhites and declining songbirds. The Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative was developed on the premise that "if you build it, they will come." Certainly, if you build good habitat the birds will come. But our more immediate strategy was that if we took the large step of building a sound plan, attention, partners, money and action would soon follow.

We anticipate the NBCI helping make bobwhite restoration an issue of regional and national significance.We hope the plan will mobilize bobwhite advocates at all levels across the country. We expect the plan will encourage unprecedented coordination and action from state wildlife agencies and their partners.We trust the plan will be embraced by other bird initiatives and joint ventures and integrated into their efforts, with the result that energies and monies will be pooled to achieve larger mutually beneficial projects.

Finally, we hope that the NBCI provides direction and a model to aid states in developing more detailed "step-down" quail plans that apply to smaller pieces of the landscape. As much hard work as it took many of us to develop the NBCI, that was the easy part. What happens next will determine whether it is destined to fill shelf space or create a legacy. Restoring bobwhites to huntable levels is still doable, if they are made a priority. But it will not be easy, it will not happen overnight, and it will not happen without persistence and a willingness to go the distance.