A breezy October afternoon welcomed Marilyn Vetter, a Midwesterner with a lifelong love for the outdoors, to Alabama. In state for the Wetumpka Wildlife Arts Festival hosted annually on the banks of the Coosa River, Vetter found a fitting backdrop to share her story in an interview with Yellowhammer News. As part of the festival, she spoke to hunters, landowners and conservation-minded Alabamians as CEO of Quail Forever about a tradition older than the state itself.
“If people don’t have the opportunity to experience it, it’s hard for them to imagine why we should care,” Vetter said. “And it’s having more people that care. They can only do so much for themselves. You know, they’re a tiny little thing. They’re pretty dependent upon us taking care of their habitat.”
‘They’ being quail – a small bird with an outsized impact on Alabama’s ecosystems and heritage. In particular, the northern bobwhite quail – an iconic species to the state and the Southeastern U.S. as a whole.
“My dad was not really a hunter,” she said. “For a man who raised cattle for slaughter, he really hated killing animals. If he killed a deer, it was because the dogs needed dog food, and we didn’t.” Her early life, she recalled, was spent mostly outdoors, wandering pastures, tending to the garden with her mother, and absorbing nature’s quiet…