Joe Crafton volunteers as the President of QuailGuard, Inc. In 2012, the Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation set about on a quest to try to identify the mysterious cause of the bobwhite quail population across its historic range.  The Rolling Plains of West Texas has historically been the best place in the world to hunt bobwhites. However, even in years of favorable weather, the Snipes Ranch and many other quail ranches were seeing a significant and unexplainable decline in populations.  This is despite having an ideal habitat and being part of an unbroken landscape of hundreds of thousands of acres in the Rolling Plains.  As part of the initiative named “Operation Idiopathic Decline,”  RPQRF quickly determined that parasite infections were the most probable and yet under-researched issue, and unique to West Texas.

Remarkably, eighty percent of the bobwhites had parasites in their eyes and their gut.  After 10 years and over $7 million in research, the FDA finally approved QuailGuard, the first approved medicated feed for a wild animal in the U.S. Under Joe’s leadership, the product is available at local feed stores, and ranches such as Snipes Ranch are seeing tremendous results. Sixty-three percent of the royalties from QuailGuard go directly to Park Cities Quail Coalition, which funds research grants.