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Opinion

This scout hatched 300 quail in the family living room to help repair an endangered ecosystem

"My view is that we're going to have an impact either way on nature — we can't not have an impact on nature," said Burke. "So, if we're going to impact nature, let's make it as positive an impact as we can."

Trevor Burke had some unusual roommates during his senior year at St. Mark's School of Texas: a flock of northern bobwhite quail.

Breeders around the state had given or sold fertilized quail eggs to Burke at a discount. They were intrigued by his audacious plan: to repopulate the Blackland Prairie of North Texas with a species that once proliferated there.

But quail eggs need the warmth of the nest to hatch, and leaving them outside would have been fatal. To pursue his dream of revitalizing the habitat on which Dallas was built, Burke consulted with master naturalists and environmental scientists.

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Then he consulted with his mom, Nancy Burke. How would she feel about him raising over 300 quail in the living room?

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(Michael Hogue / DMN Staff)

The Blackland Prairie is a distinct ecological region that roughly corresponds with the most developed area of Texas — the Interstate 35 corridor from the Red River to 300 miles south to San Antonio. Less than 1% of this prairie is protected, a few thousand acres of unspoiled grassland out of what Burke estimates were once millions. At a TEDx Kids talk at Southern Methodist University, Burke called it "one of the most critically endangered ecosystems in North America."

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Burke grew interested in the Blackland Prairie while volunteering at the Connemara Conservancy in Allen. He has since won the President's Environmental Youth Award and awards from Disney, the Scouts and others for his work conserving the ecosystem. At the Twelve Hills Nature Center in Dallas, he propagated native grasses, using seeding techniques to elbow out invasive grasses like Bermuda.

Staff at the Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area agreed to help Burke tag quail and release them in the center, one of the conserved areas of the Blackland Prairie. More than four fifths of the northern bobwhite quail, whose name derives from their call, have died out.

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Once the quail were hatched in the living room, Burke moved them to a converted dog cage in the yard, and from there to a large cage at the Lewisville Lake environmental center. When the birds reached about 14 weeks, Burke helped tag and release them. Some of them have been spotted nesting near the lake.

"My view is that we're going to have an impact either way on nature — we can't not have an impact on nature," Burke said. "So, if we're going to impact nature, let's make it as positive an impact as we can."

Rob Curran is a writer in Denton. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.