Habitat Management - Wildlife Management Pro

Benefits of Brush Control for Wildlife Habitat Management

Habitat management is the keystone of successful wildlife management. This statement has never been more true in Central Texas, where brush control is critical for maintaining important natural processes and suitable habitat for endemic wildlife. On March 25th, directors from Pedernales, Gillespie County, Comal-Guadalupe, Kendall, Kerr County, and Bandera soil and water conservation districts (SWCDs) attended a tour of the Honey Creek State Natural Area.

The Watershed Study in Honey Creek State Natural Area was established in 1999 by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to evaluate the combined effects of using selective brush removal (Ashe Juniper) to increase water quantity while protecting water quality. Phillip Wright, Range Management Specialist, with NRCS led the tour. Tour participants were taken to four sites to view equipment used to gather data for the Watershed Study. At each site, information was presented on how the equipment works and the results it has produced from cedar removal. The tour wrapped up with a walk along Honey Creek to see the stream flow that the Brush Removal has created. Continue reading Benefits of Brush Control for Wildlife Habitat Management

Drought Mitigation and Habitat Management

The year of 2009 reiterated the importance of water on the landscape. Water is not only necessary for maintaining habitat and wildlife populations, but it’s important for humans as well. Because proper management can help mitigate for dry conditions,a Drought Mitigation Workshop is being held by Holistic Management Institute (HMI) on April 11-12 in Wharton, Texas.

Drought is a consistent state of the environment in Texas, particularly the South Central Valley and Gulf Coast Regions. As an organization that is committed to the health of the land, HMI Texas believes it is important to educate landowners about how they can prepare, manage through, and recover from drought. Farm Aid is also dedicated to helping landowners remain sustainable through drought conditions and we are privileged to have their financial support and partnership in this endeavor. Continue reading Drought Mitigation and Habitat Management

Landowners Enlist in EQIP to Battle Cedar

As water supplies become more valuable, conservationists say proper habitat management is an important way to improve them in urban areas, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has begun an effort it calls Rural Land-Urban Water to promote the connection to urban audiences, funded through their Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

“We can’t make it rain in Texas when and where it’s needed,” state conservationist Don Gohmert said. “But conservation measures on the state’s vast rural lands can increase the amount, and improve the quality, of water available to Texas cities.”

In the long run, as cities grow and political power grows farther removed from the soil, the effort is partly a survival measure for the NRCS itself, which splits the cost of conservation work with landowners for habitat management. Continue reading Landowners Enlist in EQIP to Battle Cedar

Whitetail Deer Bedding Cover

Every hunter wants to shoot a big buck, but does every hunter want to provide quality habitat for their deer? The answer is no, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as those landowners realize that the choices they make impact the end product. When it comes to providing good habitat for whitetail, quality bedding cover is one of the most important things a landowner can provide, especially on smaller properties. So why is whitetail deer beddding cover so important?

Think about this just for a second: Where does a mature whitetail buck spend the greatest amount of time during the day? You may not have a good answer for me and that’s because you rarely see such an animal in the middle of the day. That’s because mature bucks are not standing in open fields throughout the middle of the hunting season, and they sure aren’t camped out in the middle of a food plot. Continue reading Whitetail Deer Bedding Cover

Deer Hunting Important to Texas

Interest in white-tailed deer hunting remains strong, but for some Texans, finding a place to hunt means traveling a lot further than in previous decades. Subdividing ranches for housing developments is a common occurrence in bedroom communities such as Bandera County near San Antonio. “Hunting is still a very important part of the Bandera County economy, but it has changed,” says Johnny Boyle, owner of Bandera True Value, which sells hunting supplies and equipment.

“It used to be all about that eight-week rush of the white-tailed season. Now there are not as many leases available as there once were, but there is more year-round hunting for hogs, axis deer and other exotics.” (Non-native “exotic” deer such as axis deer are not subject to restricted hunting seasons.) And hunters seeking their own land are heading further west than Bandera, Boyle says.

“Instead of buying 400 acres of Texas land for sale in the Hill Country, they go to Rocksprings [in Edwards County] and buy 1,500 acres,” he says. Even so, hunting remains highly important to rural Texas, says David K. Langford, a member of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s White-Tailed Deer Advisory Committee and vice president emeritus of the Texas Wildlife Association, which lobbies on behalf of ranch owners and outdoors enthusiasts. Continue reading Deer Hunting Important to Texas

Bobwhite Quail Population Dynamics

Bobwhite quail are an amazing upland game bird species with dynamic populations. Research has found that annual cumulative rainfall from April through August is a predictor that explains over 92% of the variance in annual bobwhite quail productivity, based on juvenile:adult ratios obtained from hunter bags in South Texas. Basically, annual reproduction is highly correlated with precipitation.

Overwinter survival of bobwhites in South Texas ranges from about 17 to over 80%, and is far more variable than overwinter survival of bobwhites in the Rolling Plains, which is only about 30%. Harder, colder winter weather obviously can take it’s toll on bobwhite quail populations. Continue reading Bobwhite Quail Population Dynamics

Amazing New Research on Soil Hydrology

We may have to discard some of the assumptions made regarding what we once thought about soil hydrology. It seems that water and soil to not act the way we though they did. This could have huge ramifications for modeling, as well as on the ground applications regarding ecosystems and wildlife management.

Researchers have discovered that some of the most fundamental assumptions about how water moves through soil in a seasonally dry climate will have to be reconsidered. A new study by scientists from Oregon State University and the Environmental Protection Agency showed — much to the surprise of the researchers — that soil clings tenaciously to the first precipitation after a dry summer, and holds it so tightly that it almost never mixes with other water! Continue reading Amazing New Research on Soil Hydrology