Tag: texas wildlife exemption

Should You Convert Your Land to Wildlife Valuation?

Is your agricultural exemption really working for you? Many landowners throughout Texas have found that maintaining their agricultural exemption can directly conflict with their reasons for owning property. Some of those landowners have found a better fit by converting to the wildlife management open spaces exemption, otherwise known as a wildlife exemption or wildlife valuation. It’s all the same. Under wildlife valuation, landowners can maintain their ag valuation tax rate while allowing you to focus on improving your property for wildlife.

Wildlife Valuation Background

Back in 1995 the voters of Texas voted 2-1 in favor of creating an open-space (agricultural) appraisal for land used to actively manage wildlife. The State Comptroller, with the assistance of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), and Texas AgriLife Services, was charged with creating the guidelines for qualifying lands for this tax rate. The original guidelines came out in 1996 and they were finalized in 2002.

The wildlife valuation program has been very successful in allowing rural landowners to diversify their income generating activities from livestock and row-crop management to include hunting leases, bird watching, fishing, and other nature-tourism related activities. It has allowed other landowners to invest their time and money in rehabilitating overworked land instead of continuing damaging practices to avoid residential or commercial taxes. It has the most beneficial to landowners whose property goals include the ative management of wildlife populations one their land. Continue reading Should You Convert Your Land to Wildlife Valuation?

Overview of Wildlife Management Activities for Wildlife Valuation

Ecoregions of Texas - Wildlife Valuation in Texas

Among the legal requirements for property owners to qualify their agricultural land for wildlife management use is a mandate that owners perform at least three of seven wildlife management activities. Here are the seven management activities from which a landowner can choose:

  • Habitat control (habitat management);
  • Erosion control
  • Predator control (predator management)
  • Providing supplemental supplies of water
  • Providing supplemental supplies of food;
  • Providing shelters
  • Making census counts to determine population

A detailed explanation of the kinds of practices that chief appraisers will examine to determine if property owners are satisfying the law’s requirements will be discussed in other articles on the site. Some of the practices listed may require permits from federal, state or local governments. For example, before improving a wetland or controlling grackles or cowbirds, an owner may need a permit.

In addition, before a planned burning, an owner may be required to provide a map of the acreage. Property owners should contact the appropriate legal authorities for permit information if they have any questions or concerns about engaging in any of the practices listed above.

Wildlife Management Plan

A Wildlife Management Plan gives information on the property’s history and current use, establishes landowner goals for the property and provides a set of activities designed to integrate wildlife and habitat improvement. Such a plan is clear evidence that the owner’s use of the land is primarily for wildlife management.

As stated in an earlier article about converting to wildlife valuation, an owner must provide a wildlife management plan to the county appraisal district . The plan must be completed on a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department form for each tract for which wildlife management use qualification is desired. Also, a landowner can complete the forms themselves if well-versed in wildlife management, but biologists are availalbe to help landowers identify the best practices for their tract, farm, or ranch.

A complete plan really should include elements of all seven listed wildlife management activities. And most landowners wil achieve this in one way or another. All activities and practices should be designed to overcome deficiencies that limit wildlife or harm their habitats. Each one of the activities listed in Part Two should be practiced routinely or consistently as part of an overall habitat management plan. For example, scattering seed corn sporadically would not qualify as providing supplemental supplies of food under these guidelines, and occasionally placing barrels of water in a pasture would not meet the requirements for providing supplemental supplies of water.

In addition, some activities that are appropriate for certain regions of Texas would be inappropriate in others. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has developed regional wildlife management plans, listing the activities appropriate to Texas’ ten ecological regions. The regions are shown in the photo at the top of the page.

Providing Supplemental Food for Wildlife Valuation

Most wildlife environments have some natural food, but in many cases additonal food can benefit native wildlife populations. An owner supplies supplemental food by providing food or nutrition in addition to the level naturally produced on the land. Grazing Management, Prescribed Burning and Range Improvement can be used to provide supplemental food. Other ways to provide supplemental food to meet wildlife exemption requirements include:

  • food plots
  • feeder and mineral supplements
  • managing tame pasture, old fields and croplands

Food plots are one way to establish locally adapted forage to provide supplemental foods and cover during critical periods of the year. Livestock should be generally excluded from small food plots. The shape, size, location and percentage of total land area devoted to food plots should be based on the requirements of the targeted species.

Feeders and mineral supplements also can help dispense additional food to selected wildlife species during critical periods. Feeders should not be used except to control excessive numbers of deer and/or exotic ungulates as defined within a comprehensive wildlife management plan with a targeted harvest quota that is regularly measured. Harmful aflatoxin in feed should not exceed 20 parts per billion.

Mineral supplements also may be supplied to wildlife in several ways, however, this practice must be a part of an overall habitat management plan that addresses all animal groups and considers the habitat’s carrying capacity.

Managing tame pasture, old fields and croplands can increase plant diversity, provide supplemental food and forage and gradually help convert the land to native vegetation. Recommended practices may include:

  • overseeding or planting cool season and/or warm season legumes (for example, clovers, vetches and peas) and/or small grains in pastures or rangeland
  • using plants and planting methods appropriate to the county
  • shallow tillage (discing) that encourages habitat diversity, the production of native grasses and forbs or increases bare ground feeding habitat for selected species
  • no till or minimum till agricultural practices that leave waste grain and stubble on the soil surface until the next planting season—which provide supplemental food or cover, control erosion and improve soil tilth

Legumes should be planted annually until all pastures are shifted to native vegetation.

Providing Supplemental Shelter for Wildlife Exemption

Providing supplemental shelter means actively creating or maintaining vegetation or artificial structures that provide shelter from the weather, nesting and breeding sites or “escape cover” from enemies. The best shelter for wildlife can be provided by a well-managed habitat. Some practices listed below provide types of shelter that may be unavailable in the habitat and that will help you qualify for wildlife valuation:

  • installing nest boxes and bat boxes
  • brush piles and slash retention
  • managing fence lines
  • managing hay meadow, pasture or cropland
  • half-cutting trees and shrubs
  • establishing woody plants and shrubs
  • developing natural cavities and snags

Installing nest boxes and bat boxes in the proper numbers and locations to provide nests or dens for selected species when necessary should be consistent with the habitat needs of the target species.

Brush piles and slash retention can provide additional wildlife cover and protection in habitats where inadequate natural cover limits the growth of a selected species. Planned placement of brush piles and slash retention—leaving dead brush on the ground where it was cut or uprooted—also can protect seedlings of desirable plant species. In addition, stacking posts or limbs in tepees can provide cover for small game and other wildlife in open areas.

Fence line management, which maintains or allows trees, shrubs, forbs and grasses to grow around fence lines, can provide both food and cover. This practice should only be used where cover is insufficient in the habitat, i.e. cropland or tame pasture.

Hay meadow, pasture or cropland management can be useful tools in wildlife management. Owners should postpone mowing/swathing hay fields until after the peak of the nesting/young-rearing period of local ground-nesting birds and mammals.

Owners also should mow or shred one-third of open areas per year, preferably in strips or mosaic types of patterns, to create “edge” and structural diversity. Weeds are an important source of food for many wildlife species, and owners should, therefore, minimize weed control practices.

Owners should use no till/minimum till agricultural practices to leave waste grain and stubble on the soil surface until the next planting season to provide supplemental food or cover for wildlife, control erosion and improve soil tilth.

Providing shelter also can include roadside right-of-way management for ground-nesting birds, establishing perennial vegetation on circle irrigation corners, terraces, fencerows and field borders, establishing multi-row shelterbelts or renovating old shelterbelts, and protecting and managing old homesites, farmsteads and Conservation Reserve Program cover.

Half-cutting trees and shrubs — partially cutting branches of a live tree or shrub to encourage horizontal cover near the ground — provides supplemental cover in habitats where cover is lacking for a targeted wildlife species (See the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Bulletin 48).

Woody plant/shrub establishment — planting native seedlings to establish shrub thickets, shelterbelts or wind rowswind rows—should be organized by four rows of 120 feet for a 1/4 mile.

Natural cavity/snag development involves retaining and/or creating snags for cavity-dwelling species. Undesirable trees can be girdled or treated with herbicide and left standing. Large living trees should be protected and girdling should be minimal where trees are insufficient.