On Thursday, June 25, many summer school students at Dewey School and the Chillicothe High School were presented with a unique curriculum on the importance of habitat conservation, courtesy of  the Chillicothe-based Shortgrass Chapter of Quail Forever. Cooperation by R-2 school administrators and teachers allowed more than 80 pre-third graders at Dewey and 50 plus pre-sixth graders at the high school to listen to presentations by QF instructors and even play an exciting game depicting predator-prey relationships and the importance of good habitat to prey species such as bobwhite quail.

 Quail Forever is assisting the Conservation Department and other cooperating agencies and landowners in a concerted effort in an attempt to restore Missouri’s quail population to some semblance of its former large numbers. The decline in quail population over the last 20 or more years has been of great concern to biologists, conservationists and others who recognize that quail are in many ways the “canary in the coal mine” for the nation’s outdoors and that their decline is being mirrored by declines in many other grassland wildlife species.

 Quail Forever is convinced that youth education is necessary in their quail restoration efforts, and these youngsters, if properly educated and motivated, will become the conservationists of tomorrow, but these efforts will not be achieved overnight. The Chillicothe R-2 School District was very cooperative in allowing QF to utilize a day of summer session to bring their message to youngsters who will soon play a major role in the nation’s conservation efforts............