Last month, Texas Tech's own Ronald Kendall received the 2025 Texas Environmental Excellence award from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
The award was presented to Kendall following his research in wildlife toxicology over quail.
In 1992, a publication from the National Wildlife Federation began to highlight the question hunters and outdoor enthusiasts of the time had already begun asking: where are the quail?
"Bobwhite quail is an iconic game bird, part of our culture, highly economically valuable and was under a lot of stress from environmental variables," Kendall said.
While bobwhite quail are the most iconic and most common, North America is home to six species of quail, with Texas being home to four.
According to numbers gathered by the Wildlife Toxicology Lab, from 1966 to 2019, there was an 81% decrease in quail populations.
Kendall determined at the top of that stress list for quail was parasitic disease.
Eye worms house themselves under the third eyelid of wild quail, impairing vision and, in some cases, leading to complete loss of sight. While cecal worms are found in the intestines and feed on the quail's nutrients.
With everything trying to eat them, quail depend on their eyesight to identify threats and energy to keep them going; both are affected by the presence of these parasites, leading to increased deaths.
In 2015 a week of meetings with the United States Food and Drug Administration led to the decision that Kendall had identified an important issue and supported the idea of moving forward in registering a medicated feed.
A few months later, Kendall received a roadmap from the FDA and became the principal investigator leading a university lab of graduate students through years of testing to answer every question they could think of.
It takes an average of 10 to 15 years to register a drug with the FDA. On May 23, 2024 Kendall and his lab of students were able to register their medicated feed in eight and a half years.
"I had excellent sponsors that were very supportive and very demanding. Failure was not an option for me," he said.
Now, Kendall's QuailGuard is the first FDA-registered feed for wildlife in their natural habitat to be commercially available.
"We have published scientific papers recently showing that we've had 300% to 500% increases in quail populations on medicated feed," Kendall said.
Kendall says wildlife toxicology covers the science of poisons and how it affects every aspect of wildlife health.
When Kendall began studying for his master's, the field of environmental toxicology was still in its early stages.
At the completion of his Ph.d, at 26 years old, Kendall was identified by the environmental protection agency as a potential future leader of toxicology.
For Kendall, this journey has been a life-long commitment. His desire to investigate started when he was as young as 12-years-old watching the coastal plains of South Carolina doused with chemicals by agricultural spray planes above.
"There used to be so many quail when I was a kid, I could walk out my back door and start quail hunting," he said.
Now, his childhood hunting buddies that still live in South Carolina say the hunting they once loved, is gone.
He realized the same loss of quail has already happened in East Texas and has been moving its way west.
Kendall and his team of students have endured years of testing to find a solution to the decline in quail population by finding a substance that can be deemed as poison to the parasites and harmless to the quail and their home.
"We weren't going to let it go until we got over the finish line. It drew on every bit of experience I've had throughout my career, even digging into my childhood," he said.
Through collaboration with graduate students, other scientists, and his own son, he was able to create a solution to not only raise populations – but sustain them.
To stay up to date with what Kendall is up to next, check out the Wildlife Toxicology Laboratory at Texas Tech University Facebook page.
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