The homegrown grassroots conservation group Park Cities Quail honored entrepreneur, conservationist and avid sportsman Ted Turner with the “T. Boone Pickens Lifetime Sportsman Award” in front of a capacity crowd of 1000 at its recent 2012 Park Cities Quail Dinner and Auction at the Frontiers of Flight Museum. The guest of honor was presented with a specially commissioned bronze sculpture of three flushing bobwhite quail by acclaimed sculptor Walter Matia. After accepting the award, Turner took the stage with his friend T. Boone Pickens to exchange boardroom and quail hunting anecdotes and discuss the importance of continued commitment to conservation. WFAA meteorologist and sportsman Pete Delkus moderated the chat between the two legendary sportsmen.

Now in its sixth year, The Park Cities Quail Dinner and Auction is the center of the group’s fundraising efforts. Event chairman Scott Asbury announced today that the evening netted a record $675,972 which will go directly toward PCQ’s mission of funding research and education to help restore the wild quail population in Texas. Funds raised will benefit the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch Foundation, Texas Bobwhite Brigade and the Quail Coalition. Asbury continued, “I’m happy to report the results surpassed all our expectations.”

Not only was the event a financial success, the 1000 guests in attendance exceeded the previous record of 850. The higher attendance led to increases in every category, generating successful raffle, silent and live auction sales. A quail hunt for six couples at T. Boone Pickens’ Mesa Vista Ranch was the high bid in the live auction, selling for $145,000. Other popular live auction items included a quail hunt at Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch in New Mexico, a pheasant hunt with sportsman, conservationist and rock legend Steve Winwood in the English Cotswolds, a trip to the Amazon to fly fish for peacock bass, and a dinner for 10 by renowned chef Kent Rathbun.

Held each March, Park Cities Quail’s fundraiser draws sports enthusiasts from across the country and has become known as “Conservation’s Greatest Night,” a nod to PCQ’s unique fundraising formula. Asbury explains, “It’s tough to pull off, but with a loyal and generous following, our volunteer committee manages to get almost everything donated. This means we can return virtually every dollar to research to help reverse the decline of our state’s wild quail.”

Park Cities Quail members are very encouraged by recent research breakthroughs their funds have helped make possible. Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation’s ongoing Operation Idiopathic Decline—the first study of the role of disease in quail for almost a century, has identified parasites as a problem, and continues to study the role of disease(s) contributing to dwindling quail numbers. It was announced at the fundraiser that PCQ funded a grant for the scientific first “Bobwhite Genome Project,” which successfully sequenced the bobwhite quail genome for the first time. The genetic roadmap gained from BGP will enable researchers to determine if certain quail lineages or populations are healthier or more disease-resistant. Future generations will likely benefit from the research derived from this important project.

Park Cities Quail invites the public to attend a check presentation party on April 18, 2012 from 6-8 pm at Collectors Covey in Dallas’ Inwood Village at 5550 Lovers Lane. For more information on Park Cities Quail or how to help: www.parkcitiesquail.org.