Once again, The T.W.R.A. plans to embark on what probably will turn out to be their biggest blunder ever. The agency has plans to deforest thousands of acres of perfectly viable wooded habitat; all for the presumption to re-introduce more Bobwhite Quail into The Bridgestone Centennial Wilderness Area in White County Tennessee. There’s already about 3 square miles of land that was burned to create habitat for these birds. I believe it was somewhere around 1200 birds that were released, but very few remain. The T.W.R.A. did nothing to reduce the Coyote population first, as quail are ground roosting birds and become easy prey for the night time predator. Also, rather than allowing these domestically raised Quail to become acclimated to their new environment, at least for the first year of introduction, The T.W.R.A. decided to allow them to be hunted just a few months after being released.
This is a direct violation of The T.W.R.A.’s mission parameters set forth by legislation when the agency was formed. Those mission parameters are as described on the T.W.R.A.’s website as follows: “The Mission of The Tennessee Wildlife Management Agency is to preserve, conserve, manage, protect, and enhance the wildlife of the state and their habitats for the use, benefit, and enjoyment of the citizens of Tennessee, and its visitors”. This mission does not include destruction of perfectly viable wildlife habitat, all for the prospect of creating some sort of quail sanctuary.
The T.W.R.A. has already failed miserably in The Bridgestone W.M.A. with regards to the big game populations there. A quick look at the agency’s own Game Harvest Statistics reveals abysmal findings. Rather than “Enhancing” the wildlife there, you would think they are deliberately exterminating it. Not only have the harvest numbers stagnated over the past ten years, they’ve declined steadily. The Wild Turkey Harvests show that only one bird for almost every two square miles was harvested. Whitetail deer Harvest numbers are pitiful also at one deer per about every two hundred acres.
There is only one barely justifiable reason to do what The T.W.R.A. has recently proposed; if the project was to save a federally endangered species. Last time I checked, the Bobwhite Quail was not on that list. The problem here is the agency itself. The designation “Agency” gives The T.W.R.A. certain protection from public scrutiny, because the agency has no obligation to report anything to the paying public that funds it. It’s kind of like a subcontractor. The T.W.R.A. only needs to file an annual report to the office of The Governor that it is adequately managing the state’s wildlife. The agency hangs on a thin thread that leads directly to The Governor. With the stroke of a pen through Executive Order, The T.W.R.A. can be dismantled, and the duties and responsibilities could easily be assigned to The Department of Environmental Conservation. It is my opinion that that would be the best course of action to both reign in the slaphappy misguided agency’s failed track record and insure accountability to those that pay for its services. As a department of The Government of The State it would be constitutionally bound to serve “We The People” rather than fulfill its own selfish aspirations.