By Craig Nyhus, Lone Star Outdoor News
At the 25th Annual Kate Ireland Memorial Dinner & Auction on Oct. 20 in Tallahassee, Florida, quail research organization Tall Timbers honored a Texan, Chuck Ribelin.
Ribelin, 91, has been an advocate for bobwhite quail for decades, and learned about Tall Timbers in 2008 when he met Tall Timbers President/CEO Bill Palmer. Since then, the Dallas resident has supported the organization, kickstarting two important capital campaign initiatives, the Piney Woods Quail Endowment and the Quail Expansion & Recovery Fund, also known as the Chuck & Martha Ribelin Quail Expansion Scientist.
This year, 10 percent of the auction proceeds from the event were dedicated to the Piney Woods Quail Endowment in Ribelin’s honor. With a focus on expanding quail populations in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, the Western Piney Woods Quail Endowment supports the Tall Timbers Western Game Bird Director position, an on- the-ground role critical to successful quail expansion west of the Red Hills and Albany regions (in Florida and Georgia) where quail expansion has been successful. Tall Timbers will introduce the research based strategies farther west in these areas.
Thanks to Ribelin’s generosity, Tall Timbers placed a full-time scientist in the Texas region in 2020, allowing it to implement the Tall Timbers’ model across the Piney Woods region.
Ribelin said he appreciated the award, as he was the “first one who was an outsider” to receive it, and he believed in what Tall Timbers is doing. “The big thing I’m pushing is the expansion of the methods to 25 states,” he said. “Bill Palmer (Tall Timbers president and CEO) has a common sense, simple philosophy: habitat, feed them, get rid of some of the predators and don’t harvest too many. If you keep the numbers up, it’s easier for them to bounce back.”
Ribelin said in Florida and Georgia, where they previously had one bird per 10 acres, they now have one bird per acre.
“The plantations are running six to eight covers per hour,” he said. “We get that per day if we’re lucky.”
At 91 years old, Ribelin is getting both knees replaced in early November, then plans to get back on the golf course by May.
“I’ve shot my age every year, except one, since I was 66,” he said. “I should be able to do it at 91.”
