Texas Tech researcher Ronald Kendall has spent decades in the trenches of wildlife toxicology, and now he’s got something to show for it: medicated quail feed that actually works. After years of research, FDA meetings, and enough paperwork to wipe out a forest, his team rolled out QuailGuard—the first FDA-approved wildlife feed designed to kill parasites without killing the birds.
Turns out quail aren’t just disappearing because Lubbock keeps paving over everything green. Nope, they’ve also been getting wrecked by eye worms (that literally make them blind) and intestinal parasites that eat their nutrients. Not exactly the “Circle of Life” Disney promised us. Kendall’s medicated feed has led to 300–500% jumps in quail populations—basically a miracle in bird math.
Kendall, who’s been obsessed with environmental poisons since watching planes spray pesticides as a kid, finally got the FDA’s green light after just eight and a half years. That’s basically lightning speed in federal-government time. He calls it the culmination of a lifetime of work, while the rest of us just call it “finally some good news.”
Of course, this doesn’t fix the fact that Lubbock will gladly bulldoze habitats for another strip mall, or that prairie chickens are still circling the extinction drain. But at least now, if you squint, you might actually see a quail or two before someone hits it with their F-250.
Who knew saving West Texas wildlife would take a miracle drug—when really, all the quail wanted was not to live in Lubbock?
