By Theron Terhune, Outreach & Education Coordinator
Earlier this summer we hosted the first of a new series of land managers’ luncheons. The topic for the luncheon was the "Integration of GIS and GPS into Land Management". We discussed current GIS technology, the current and future use of various GPS units, and how to use this information/technology to collect data and help inform everyday land management decisions. We explained how to create maps with free on-line software as well as how to put background images on GPS units.
Land Managers Luncheon a success
I have to say that I was blown away by the response and interest in this first luncheon – more than 50 landowners, land managers, biologists, and/or Tall Timbers' members attended. Thank you so much for your support and for making this event a success!! A pervading question going into this first luncheon was: Should we have more Land Managers Luncheons in the future? After receiving feedback and comments about these luncheons, it is apparent that, indeed, we should continue to provide this opportunity for our members and constituents. As a result, we hope to have 3 – 4 luncheons a year (about one each quarter).
So, now the question is: What topics should be covered? We have already scheduled our next Land Manager's Luncheon; it will be September 7. The topic of this luncheon will be on a new and very cool software application called CoveyIQ. Tall Timbers has partnered with CoveyIQ to bring you the latest and greatest technology that allows wild quail plantations and land managers to collect and archive relevant quail hunting information, such as coveys found, dogs pointed, and number of birds harvested. The software provides a nice, user-friendly platform for entering data and evaluating hunting success. More information and details will be provided in the next couple of weeks via the Tall Timbers website, so stay tuned, but mark your calendars now. We hope to see you there!
We want to hear from you: What would you like a future land managers’ luncheon to discuss? What are you most interested in learning more about? Send your Land Managers Luncheon idea to Theron.
Landowners and managers who attended the June 26 learn and lunch event taught by Theron Terhune and Joe Noble.
In these times of financial uncertainty, it is critical that we remain focused on our mission: Promoting good land stewardship through research, conservation and education. For over 50 years now, Tall Timbers has remained at the forefront of critical research in the areas of fire ecology, forestry and wildlife management. Tall Timbers continues to be a vocal advocate for private landowner rights, helping shape public policy decisions on wildlife management, prescribed fire and land conservation. It is our hope that you will continue your investment in the future of Tall Timbers by renewing your annual gift this year.
You can be assured that your financial investment in Tall Timbers is being put to great use. Our research and conservation staff is able to leverage the support of our membership program by finding matching grant dollars from foundations, government agencies and corporate resources to help fund our programs at full capacity. In many cases, for every $1 contributed to our membership program we are able to find an additional $3 to match it from outside sources.
If you have already renewed your membership gift this year, we thank you. If not, you can easily click to renew online. With your help we can reach our annual goal of $420,000 by the end of the year.
The 15th Annual Kate Ireland Memorial Auction and Golf Tournament
September 23-24, 2012 at the Glen Arven Country Club in Thomasville, GA
The Kate Ireland Memorial Auction and Golf Tournament celebrates our 15th year of raising fun(ds) specifically for the Tall Timbers Foundation. Named in memory of longtime friend, benefactor and Tall Timbers Board Chairman, Miss Kate Ireland, this very special event is our largest annual fundraiser and critical to our operating budget. Please join us at Glen Arven Country Club in Thomasville, GA for another fun-filled event in September.
The silent and live auctions provide you with the opportunity to bid on once in a lifetime trips, hunting excursions, family vacations, original artwork and much more! Come join the fun on Sunday evening, September 23. Formal invitations will be mailed in early August to all Tall Timbers members and donors. For more information on how you can participate, click here.
For the golfers, the challenging and historic Glen Arven course will test your skills on the links with a traditional 4-man scramble tournament on Monday morning, September 24. For more information on how you can put together a team or play as an individual player, click here.
Familiar Names Top Georgia-Florida Turkey Invitational
By Vann Middleton, Director of Operations and Support
The 2012 Georgia – Florida Turkey Invitational was another smashing success and generated tremendous support for the Tall Timbers Game Bird Program. A full field of over 50 two-person teams from across the Red Hills Region competed for the coveted perpetual trophy and bragging rights for the year. A total of 31 mature gobblers were harvested on the morning of Friday, April 13; an unlucky day to be a turkey in the Red Hills! At the end of the day, a few familiar names found their way to the winner’s circle. Inaugural champions Walter Hatchett and Travis Sherman made it a “three-peat” in 2012, winning for the third time in the seven short years of the competition. Hatchett and Sherman, of River Ridge Plantation in Leon County, brought in another crusty old gobbler that scored 52.125, besting the rest of the field by a slim margin. Second place went to the team of Chris Wilson and Billy Benton, and third place went to Mason Hawkins and Tim Miles.
In the second year of the Youth Division, 12 year old Christopher Watt of Thomasville, Georgia repeated as champion with another great bird. Together with teammate Tony Pope of Osceola Plantation, Christopher triumphed over a field of twelve Youth Division teams. Second place in the Youth Division went to Ty Turner, while third went to Michael Rudell.
The Georgia Florida Turkey Invitational is a friendly competition among some of the most passionate turkey hunters in the Red Hills Region. The competition is also a key fundraiser for the Game Bird Program at Tall Timbers – helping fund critical research in the woods and in the lab. This year’s event raised over $20,000 for the Game Bird Program. Since the competition’s inception in 2006, over $140,000 has been contributed to our research efforts!
Many thanks to all who helped make this year’s event another great outing. A very special thank you to the Williams and Parker families for hosting the traditional Rules Dinner the evening prior to the hunt at their beautiful Osceola Plantation Lodge in Thomasville. A trio of professional turkey call makers was on hand to delight the crowd with their favorite tips and tricks. David Halloran (Great Valley, New York), Donny Richards (Brundidge, Alabama) and Ryan Giddens (Bainbridge, Georgia) shared their collective secrets to success while delighting the crowd with funny tales from the woods.
Tall Timbers would like to thank Mason Hawkins for generously hosting the luncheon and awards ceremony at Rosemary Plantation on the day of the hunt. Our good friends at Plantation Security provided another great fish fry for all to enjoy. Thanks as well to Tournament Coordinators John Daniel, Tim Miles and Bryan Knox for all of their help and support in organizing another great event. We look forward to another great time next year!
The Bird Lab is lending a hand in efforts to help conserve two of the rarest birds in North America
By Jim Cox, Bird Lab Director
The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow occurs in the wide open prairie lands of central Florida. These flat, treeless expanses occur exclusively in Florida and support a tremendous diversity of rare plants as well endemic Florida grasshopper sparrow. Fire is a key process — occurring approximately every 1-2 years — and the lab is gathering preliminary background information on one sparrow population that will be used to develop studies on the effects that different fire regimes may have.
Time is of the essence, too, because the global population of the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow is estimated to be less than 500 individuals, and population trends are downward.
The work focuses on the sparrow population on Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area in Osceola County, one of the largest populations known (about 200 individuals). Herbert Stoddard grew up in this setting and knew these prairie lands intimately, and the Bird Lab will be using field procedures similar to those used to study Bachman’s Sparrows in the Red Hills. Three Lakes is providing housing and field equipment during this developmental stage, and a better understanding of the relationship between fire and Florida Grasshopper population dynamics could be integral to conserving this imperiled species.
Florida dry prairie on Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area in Osceola County, Florida is habitat for Florida Grasshopper Sparrows. Photo by Katy NeSmith. Above photo of Ph.D. candidate Marianne Korosy holding a pair of Florida Grasshopper Sparrows by Jim Cox.
The Bird Lab in the Bahamas
A few hundred miles east of Three Lakes (and a hop across the Gulf Stream) lies another conservation challenge the Bird Lab is especially well suited to address. The subspecies of Brown-headed Nuthatch found in the Bahamas is restricted to an area approximately 25 by 15 miles in extant. It’s estimated the nuthatch split from its more common American cousin >100,000 years ago, and today the population is listed as critically endangered with a total population of fewer than 500 individuals.
With support from the Bahamas National Trust, the Bird Lab will be taking mist nets and banding equipment to the Bahamas this summer to collect DNA samples from birds on Grand Bahamas Island and to develop better estimates for the size and health of the population. The DNA samples are essential for answering long-standing questions about the uniqueness of this population — several authorities list this nuthatch as a distinct species because of its long-term isolation from mainland populations and morphological and behavioral differences. The DNA samples will be compared to samples the Bird Lab and University of Florida have collected from dozens of mainland populations (including the Red Hills region) as well as the Pygmy Nuthatch, a sibling species that occurs in pinewoods in the western U.S.
The Bahamas Nuthatch occupies fire-maintained pinelands that have an open structure and mixed-age trees similar to pinelands in the Red Hills. Fire is a key management tool, and this one-time event for the Bird Lab will help in establishing the need for a more comprehensive conservation and management programs.
Bahamas Pinelands and above Bahamas Nuthatch. Photos by Gary Slater, Ecostudies Institute.
The M-CORES program, which includes the proposed Suncoast Connector Toll Road in Jefferson County, passed through the Florida Legislature at breakneck speed with little review or analysis. Tall Timbers has a number of concerns given the potential for significant and wide spread impacts. These include fragmenting public and private conservation lands, robbing business from Main Street Monticello, impacting our rivers and other water resources, and making prescribed fire more difficult and costly.
Join us in asking the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners to OPPOSE the Suncoast Connector toll road and its path through Jefferson County.
Take action now with our easy email form.
Send an email to all five Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners with one click!
Selected Publications authored by Wildland Fire Science staff.
Educating and guiding the next generation of fire researchers and managers is a key goal of Wildland Fire Science and a resource for testing new ideas in fire research.
Tall Timbers hosts the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium, a national network of researchers and managers who promote integrated research and management to advance next generation tools for fire practitioners. https://arcg.is/1DSjDT
Working with partners in the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium, the program is building nexgen 3-D fuel beds using terrestrial LiDAR and novel sampling techniques to power new fire behavior models for prescribed fire managers. This work links to Tall Timbers work in wildlife habitat usage and ecological forestry.
Tall Timbers is leading an effort to map fire regimes at the landscape scale. Staff work with numerous agencies to evaluate fire records and satellite imagery to build this critical conservation database. https://skfb.ly/6DqOY
We are linking physics and field observations to understand the fluid dynamics of fire behavior surface fire regimes. Our work combines field observations using advanced thermal imaging techniques, laboratory studies, and coupled fire-atmospheric modeling to help managers improve outcomes of managed fire regimes.
Burn prioritization modeling seminars and fire modeling tools are supported by Wildland Fire Science to train managers in the important planning stages of prescribed fires.
The conserved lands of the Greater Red Hills region are found on working, income-producing properties that support agriculture, forestry, and recreational hunting. These properties contribute $272 million annually to local economies and support 2,300 jobs. [link to Planning & Advocacy section] The landowners’ strong stewardship ethic preserves their working lands while replenishing drinking water supplies, protecting water quality, and providing wildlife habitat for dozens of rare and endangered species. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements on these working properties encourage landowners to retain their traditional livelihood by keeping farms in family ownership.
Home to world-class wild quail populations, the Greater Red Hills region contains the largest concentration of gamebird preserves in the United States. These preserves also support the largest community of Red-cockaded woodpeckers on private lands. Indicators of high quality habitat found here include the gopher tortoise, Bachman’s sparrow, fox squirrel, and many amphibians. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements identify and protect the critical habitats of these species.
The region also boasts outstanding aquatic resources. Large river systems, like the Flint/Apalachicola, Ochlockonee, and Aucilla, flow from Georgia and feed into the Gulf of Mexico to support some of the world’s most productive estuaries. Large disappearing sinkhole lakes, like Iamonia, Miccosukee, and Jackson, provide habitat for an array of aquatic species and migratory birds. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements protect these vital watersheds and wetlands that are the lifeblood for the ecological health of the region.
Once dominated by longleaf pine, our pine woodlands support abundant wildlife and local economies. These forests need prescribed fire to stay healthy. Herbert L. Stoddard and his associates Ed and Roy Komarek were pioneers in this emerging scientific field during the mid-20th century. Tall Timbers continues that legacy with applied research on prescribed fire and land management. Today, there is a tremendous need to expand prescribed fire use beyond the Red Hills to ensure ecosystem health and reduce wildfire risk. Additionally, Tall Timbers uses conservation easements to permanently protect private woodlands while balancing the need for economic return from selective timbering.
Tall Timbers hosts the premier fire technology transfer organization—the Southern Fire Exchange. This JFSP funded effort helps connect research to management through webinars, workshops, and support of the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium.
The Longleaf Legacy landscape prescribed fire burn team arm of Wildland Fire Science works directly with landowners and partners to effectively put fire on the ground and promote prescribed fire throughout the region.
Staff and researchers support Federal fire training by serving as a cadre for NWCG training courses, ranging from basic wildland fire to advanced fire effects.
(PFTC) specializes in training fire fighters the principles and techniques of prescribed fire through practical hands-on experience. https://www.fws.gov/fire/pftc/
Private land owners are the largest source of prescribed fire in the country. These land owners and the culture of fire that was maintained by them during decades of suppression are a part of why Tall Timbers is a world-wide center for prescribed fire science. Workshops and fire training are a critical focus of the Longleaf Legacy Landscape Burn Team and our support of the Georgia Forestry Commission Prescribed Fire Center in Marion County.
.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&w=890 "Putting practice at Glen Arven")
The 2012 Georgia – Florida Turkey Invitational was another smashing success and generated tremendous support for the Tall Timbers Game Bird Program. A full field of over 50 two-person teams from across the Red Hills Region competed for the coveted perpetual trophy and bragging rights for the year. A total of 31 mature gobblers were harvested on the morning of Friday, April 13; an unlucky day to be a turkey in the Red Hills! At the end of the day, a few familiar names found their way to the winner’s circle. Inaugural champions Walter Hatchett and Travis Sherman made it a “three-peat” in 2012, winning for the third time in the seven short years of the competition. Hatchett and Sherman, of River Ridge Plantation in Leon County, brought in another crusty old gobbler that scored 52.125, besting the rest of the field by a slim margin. Second place went to the team of Chris Wilson and Billy Benton, and third place went to Mason Hawkins and Tim Miles. 
In the second year of the Youth Division, 12 year old Christopher Watt of Thomasville, Georgia repeated as champion with another great bird. Together with teammate Tony Pope of Osceola Plantation, Christopher triumphed over a field of twelve Youth Division teams. Second place in the Youth Division went to Ty Turner, while third went to Michael Rudell.
The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow occurs in the wide open prairie lands of central Florida. These flat, treeless expanses occur exclusively in Florida and support a tremendous diversity of rare plants as well endemic Florida grasshopper sparrow. Fire is a key process — occurring approximately every 1-2 years — and the lab is gathering preliminary background information on one sparrow population that will be used to develop studies on the effects that different fire regimes may have.
.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&w=1080 "Bahamas nuthatch")
With support from the Bahamas National Trust, the Bird Lab will be taking mist nets and banding equipment to the Bahamas this summer to collect DNA samples from birds on Grand Bahamas Island and to develop better estimates for the size and health of the population. The DNA samples are essential for answering long-standing questions about the uniqueness of this population — several authorities list this nuthatch as a distinct species because of its long-term isolation from mainland populations and morphological and behavioral differences. The DNA samples will be compared to samples the Bird Lab and University of Florida have collected from dozens of mainland populations (including the Red Hills region) as well as the Pygmy Nuthatch, a sibling species that occurs in pinewoods in the western U.S.
