The following highlights were collected from the updates we provide the Tall Timbers Board of Trustees throughout the year. We hope you enjoy this look back at a few of our successes, challenges and steps towards the expansion of our organization. Check out an audio recap of the year below and an in-depth discussion with Tall Timbers Research Director Morgan Varner. Â
Timber harvest kicks off longleaf-wiregrass restoration experiment

Travelers on County Road 12 have new views into Tall Timbers and our continuous use of the property as a laboratory for land stewardship practices.
Timber harvest sites near the eastern and western boundaries of Tall Timbers along the county road were selected for experiments focused on restoring longleaf pine and native groundcover using a series of novel designs. The February and March harvesting clears the way for restoration experiments to start in 2025.
Research staff members developed the experiments and we have received additional interest from science and land management collaborators including universities and the U.S. Forest Service.
These new post-harvest restoration experiments complement our past work on upland pine conversion to longleaf using underplanting and canopy openings. The timber harvest method may be a desirable option for sites struggling with non-native understory plants or a lack of native seed sources.
The project will help address recurring land management questions regarding longleaf and groundcover establishment while expanding the spectrum of research-based restoration treatments available.
Georgia approves certified burner reciprocity agreement
Certified prescribed fire practitioners in a dozen states can now burn in Georgia thanks to a reciprocity agreement by the state forestry agency.
The policy change by the Georgia Forestry Commission is a step forward in getting more fire on the ground, expanding training opportunities, and stemming concerns over landowner liability.

The idea to recognize burn certifications across state lines came from a Tri-State Fire Leadership Summit at Tall Timbers in 2023 that included forestry and wildlife officials from Florida, Georgia, and Alabama and federal National Resource Conservation Service leadership.
But the agreement took the forward thinking of Georgia State Forester Tim Lowrimore, Deputy Director John Sabo, and Wildland Fire Specialist Ken Parker, said Tall Timbers Private Lands Fire Initiative Director John McGuire.
“This makes it easier to get certification and maintain certification in different states,” McGuire said. “It’s a commonsense solution to facilitating more contractors burning in different regions.”
McGuire and his Private Lands Fire Initiative team coordinated the Tri-State Fire Leadership Summit that sparked the reciprocity agreement. They continue to advocate for reciprocity among other Southeastern states.
Kate Richardson lands as the new Stoddard Bird Lab Director

With a strong background in research and policy regarding rare species, Kate Richardson, PhD, joined the Tall Timbers team on March 18 to lead Tall Timbers’ Stoddard Bird Lab.
Richardson earned her MS and PhD in Environmental Science and Policy from George Mason University, where she also received a Bachelor’s degree in Biology with a minor in Applied Conservation through a program with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. She conducted her postdoctoral research at Purdue University.
For the last five and a half years, Richardson has worked for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, progressing from the Gopher Tortoise Assistant Program Coordinator to the Imperiled Species Policy Administrator.
Her research experience includes passive acoustic monitoring, social network analysis, and mark-recapture analysis, all focusing on providing information to help inform land management policy and guide wildlife management decisions.
Bobwhite translocation opened in Pennsylvania
Fifty quail from Tall Timbers’ Livingston Place property were released on March 19 to the grounds of Letterkenny Army Depot in Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
That brings the number to 76 bobwhites planted on site in recent weeks and we have two more years of planned translocations. The Game Commission officially declared quail extirpated from Pennsylvania after surveys in 2013 and 2014.
But it’s likely they were lost even earlier, in the late 1990s or early 2000s, said Andrew Ward, the Game Commission’s quail biologist and former Tall Timbers Game Bird graduate student on Escape Ranch.

Starting in 2017, the Game Commission and Letterkenny began mowing, seeding, disking, burning, herbiciding and otherwise managing about 2,700 acres of the U.S. Army installation. In 2023, the National Bobwhite and Grasslands Initiative’s technical committee, including Tall Timbers staff, declared the site ready for birds.
So far, the 50 birds from Tall Timbers are joined by 11 from Fort Barfoot in Virginia and 15 from Fort Knox in Kentucky. Another trapping effort is planned at Fort Barfoot.
The restoration and translocation effort at Letterkenny is part of a large partnership of agencies and conservation organizations working to bring bobwhites back to the Commonwealth. Both the Carolina Regional Quail Program and the new Quail Expansion Program within Tall Timbers’ Game Bird Program have played key roles in planning and executing the translocation.
Groundbreaking for new education center
Ground broke on the future Leigh Perkins Conservation Education Center in August, kicking off the next chapter in Tall Timbers’ role as the epicenter for research, education, and training on prescribed fire, land conservation and wildlife management.
The large conference facility will allow Tall Timbers to host larger groups of up to 300 people to accommodate the increasing demand for training. The 14,500-square-foot facility is located steps from our research forest’s hands-on learning opportunities.
Since its founding in 1958, Tall Timbers has organized 24 Fire Ecology Conferences and is a recognized convener of thought leaders, scientists, conservationists, community groups, and decision-makers. There is a growing need to convene groups and increase understanding of how prescribed fires benefit land, wildlife, and people.
When Leigh passed in 2021, the Perkins Family quickly embraced the vision for a state-of-the-art conservation education facility at Tall Timbers as an excellent fit for Leigh’s conservation ethic and drive to help connect people with the outdoors. Thanks to the Perkins family and other dedicated supporters, more than $6 million in donations have helped Tall Timbers realize this education center.Â
The building was designed by BFBS Architects and Ajax Building Company will lead the way to a planned opening in late 2025.

Investing in smoke science
Tall Timbers is heavily engaged in the new air quality standards and continues work to ensure that prescribed fire implementation – a key to mitigating the negative air quality, health and safety impacts of wildfire – remains strong across the Southeast and the rest of the country.
To bolster that focus, Holly Nowell, PhD, was hired as the director of our new Smoke Science Program in July. Director of Research Morgan Varner said hiring a smoke scientist is a bold investment for the organization that will ensure a lasting impact on the coexistence of prescribed fire use and the people who live nearby.
“It’s the biggest change for our science staff in 20 years. Smoke has always been something we worried about but never invested in formally,” Varner said. “We try to confront ideas, policies and opinions with data, so we see the Smoke Science Program addressing that.”
Watch Research Director Morgan Varner discuss the new Smoke Science ProgramÂ
Bill Palmer inducted into NBGI Hall of Fame
Bill Palmer has made his mark on Tall Timbers and the larger world of quail management and research. In July, that career of work was recognized by his induction into the National Bobwhite & Grassland Initiative’s Hall of Fame.

Bill’s almost 30-year career at Tall Timbers started in 1996 when he directed the Game Bird program. He was selected as our President and CEO in 2012.
He developed a nationally recognized research program that has not only expanded our knowledge of the bobwhite quail but continues to pursue landscape scale research projects, analyze long-term datasets and test innovative techniques for researching the birds and their habitat nationwide.
Bill has also served as a mentor and imparted his breadth of knowledge of quail and wildlife management and research to dozens of graduate students over the years, including several current Tall Timbers staffers and well-respected alumni. His knack for connecting with landowners and their managers helped change the trajectory of Tall Timbers early in his career. He built strong partnerships, trust, and two-way engagement that continue to grow today.
Prescribed Fire and its connection to bees
Fire, flowers and bees have a close connection, a study by Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Lab and the U.S. Forest Service found. The goal was to test the effects of fire in winter, spring, summer, and fall on which bees appear and which plant species they visit. This research has been recorded in two recent publications in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution and Ecology and Evolution.
Kevin Robertson and Cinnamon Dixon helped identify plant species in the Season of Fire plots and Forest Service entomologists helped identify bee species. Over the course of the study, 92 bee species visited 79 flower species, and 446 unique combinations of bee-plant species interactions were observed.
This work demonstrates that the effects of individual fires on plants and plant pollinators are fairly short-lived regardless of the season of burning. However, it also suggests that repeated fires in a given season applied over larger scales might shape patterns of flowering, pollinator communities, and abundance of plant species.
$25 million partnership expands Florida conservation work
Tall Timbers was awarded $25 million in October in a new federal partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to continue its wildly successful Regional Conservation Partnership Program.
Available in 11 North Florida counties, the new funding will help expand conservation practices like prescribed fire and tree planting to eligible landowners in five additional counties, growing the reach of Tall Timbers’ cost-share initiatives. The partnership not only means more restoration and improvement of Florida’s fire-dependent ecosystems, but also grows the connection with other nongovernmental organizations, universities and landowners and has an economic benefit for the region’s network of forestry contractors and consultants.

In addition to helping fund conservation practices, about $10 million of the award will be dedicated to purchased conservation easements. That funding can be used in conjunction with the Florida Department of Agriculture’s Rural and Family Lands Protection Program to help conserve more of Florida’s Big Bend, including lands in the Florida Wildlife Corridor.
Leading the way on prescribed fire insurance
Tall Timbers is directing an innovative private market solution to deliver insurance to prescribed burners. Led by the Private Lands Prescribed Fire Initiative, the project creates a risk pool insurance policy for Georgia prescribed burn association members that can help waylay fears of burning and create an affordable economy of scale.

The 1,600 members of three Georgia prescribed burn associations — the West Central GA Forest Landowner Association, Southwest GA PBA, and Savannah River PBA — will have access to insurance for burns conducted through these groups. This unique model in Georgia builds on early success in the Central Alabama PBA, which started a smaller-scale risk pool insurance program this year.
The Georgia project is supported by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR). DNR is funding the establishment of the policy, which takes a tiered approach to transferring annual costs to the members of the PBAs over the next three years. Tall Timbers is a pass-through for the funding from the DNR and provides guidance, training and outreach to the PBAs.
Because the insurance policy is being administered by the PBAs, there is an added layer of oversight from certified prescribed burn managers working with landowners to ensure that site preparation, burn planning and burns are being done responsibly and in a way that reduces risk. Annual meetings by the PBAs will give a general scope of the level of burning planned for the year and open opportunities for mentoring.
This private market solution helps address burner liability in fiscally conservative states that are hesitant to establish publicly funded liability funds for prescribed fire. Tall Timbers intends to show that the private insurance model is one option for addressing burner liability while, where appropriate, continuing to advocate for publicly funded liability solutions that recognize the public benefits of prescribed fire.
Bipartisan and bicameral: Tall Timbers filling dual roles in Washington and on the ground
In the course of two days in October, Tall Timbers Research Director Morgan Varner went from a fire and technology roundtable at the White House to speaking with landowners on the ground in Albany for our Fall Field Day.
It’s that dual role that characterizes Tall Timbers’ expansion as a trusted voice at the national level in crafting and furthering pro-prescribed fire policy and a regional resource for land owners and managers who use fire to manage their woods. It shows our investment in protecting the use of prescribed fire with staffers and decisionmakers in Washington and in working at the local and regional level to help managers and landowners address their issues.

Varner’s visit as part of the White House FireTech Innovation Roundtable is the product of years of working within Tall Timbers’ strategic plan, which challenged the organization to lean into, speak out, and be bold in our support of prescribed fire.
In 2021, we hired a national consulting firm and, with their help, have developed bicameral and bipartisan relationships as a credible voice for prescribed fire that rises above partisan politics.
There is no truer example than when Varner testified on wildfire policy before the Senate Budget Committee in 2023. He was invited by Republicans and was seen as an ally by Democrats.
Now, efforts to continue building relationships in the Executive Branch throughout the last two administrations are being noticed.
“This White House event elevates us to be in the discussion,” Varner said. “It is noted that we’re there by the other folks in the academia, federal research and development, industry and funders. We’re now a part of that discussion when policymakers convene experts.”
Years of work with Senate, House, and Executive staff will continue to keep Tall Timbers in the discussion as administrations change. As new cabinet positions are announced, the people we’ve already established a rapport with will continue to provide invaluable connections with policymakers who support the use of prescribed fire.