For those of you who take notice of your monthly investment statements, 401K balances and retirement accounts, the past several years have been an up and down roller coaster full of anxiety and unknowns. Not-for-profit organizations all over the country have suffered greatly through the “great recession” that began in 2008, and the subsequent slow recovery. The few that have emerged unscathed have been the ones who have tightened their belts, trimmed expenses and planned accordingly for the future. In February 2008, Tall Timbers celebrated its 50th Anniversary just as the financial markets were beginning the downward spiral to depths that hadn’t been seen in over 10 years. It was at that time that Tall Timbers, with its Board of Trustees leading the way, embarked on a major fundraising effort – an Endowment Campaign – the likes of which we had never attempted before. We followed all of the best practices of Campaign Management 101. We hired outside counsel to help craft a plan; performed a comprehensive feasibility study to test our case statement; conducted face-to-face interviews with some of our most ardent supporters and kicked off the silent phase of the largest campaign in our history – right as the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped below 8,000. What timing!
I’m not sure what’s harder – trying to raise money for an intangible concept like sustainable endowment funds or having to do it in the toughest financial times since the stock market crashed in 1987. Needless to say, we had a game plan and moved forward with our first solicitation in January 2008. Under the leadership and guidance of the Campaign’s Co-Chairs Daphne Wood and Tom Rankin, and our Development Director Vann Middleton, we hit the ground running in the silent phase of the campaign. In a few short months, we had received 100% Board participation in the campaign, and in the process we had suddenly raised several million dollars.
The goal of the campaign was to raise significant, long-term sustainable resources for the research, conservation and education programs at Tall Timbers. In Research, we needed help in the Fire Ecology Program to shore up significant resources to replace “soft dollar” funding from grant and project dollars. In Vertebrate Ecology, we needed core operating dollars to fully fund Jim Cox’s position and to add a core funded Research Technician to his program. The Game Bird Endowment Fund, by far the most fully endowed program, needed additional resources to reach a milestone number that could adequately fund the annual needs of long-term quail research on Tall Timbers’ Kate Ireland Model Quail & Conservation Area.
The Land Conservancy had 3.5 positions COMPLETELY funded by soft dollar grants and project funds. As the largest regional land trust in both Georgia and Florida, with over 115,000 acres of land in Conservation Easement at that time, we only had two staff members out of six that were funded through our operating budget. With 80+ easements to monitor every year, and with new prospects interested in putting conservation easements on their land, we desperately needed to secure permanent funding to get the work done.
Our 10-year strategic plan identified the need to create an Education & Outreach Coordinator position, whose primary role would be to help work with landowners and managers to implement the best practices identified by our long-term research. This would be a new program and the ONLY new position identified in our Campaign plan.
Surprisingly, as the financial markets continued to tumble throughout 2008 and into the early months of 2009, where they hit rock bottom, a funny thing happened. At face to face visits, the prospects we identified from our earlier study started to open up about their love of Tall Timbers and how important the organization was in their annual charitable giving plans. People were willing to tell us that even in the darkest of times, they were prepared to help seed our future with a lasting gift to our Endowment Campaign. Just as our current Endowment Funds were losing over 30% of their value in the choppy investment markets of 2008-09, our closest friends were making pledges and promises to right the ship for the long run.
At this past month’s Naturalists’ Ball, we publicly recognized for the first time, those 74 donors who stepped up to the plate and accepted our challenge. With their generous contributions, over $9 million was raised for Tall Timbers Endowments. This is a tremendous accomplishment and one of which we are very proud. As a result, Tall Timbers has remained fiscally responsible in tough times. These new endowment dollars have allowed us to accomplish the following:
Fund the Red Hills Land Use Planner position, and 50% of the Land Conservation Biologist
Fully funded a Fire Ecology Biologist position for the Fire Ecology Program
Created the Education and Outreach Program ahead of schedule, by hiring a PhD level wildlife biologist
Fully funded the Game Bird Scientist and Biologist
Provide much needed program capacity to all programs at Tall Timbers
Above all else, the results of the Campaign allowed us to operate efficiently and effectively. Additionally, we were able to accomplish all of this while dropping our annual operating distribution “draw” from our Endowment Funds from a high of 7% in 2003, to a much more sustainable 4.28% in 2012.
Who knows where we’d be right now, had our Board decided not to move forward with the campaign in 2008. In my mind, there is no doubt that Tall Timbers would be a skeleton of its current self. As luck would have it, the seeds are growing and our productivity is as high as it’s ever been. The future looks bright for Tall Timbers. While we are thrilled with the $9 million result of our efforts thus far, the distribution from these funds will not completely cover our goal of 30-40% of annual operating needs. Be on the lookout for future correspondence on how you can participate and join the select group of donors who have stepped up for the future of Tall Timbers.
Thanks to all who helped plan, implement and gave to the Endowment Campaign. You have planted a foundation from which Tall Timbers can continue to grow and prosper in the years to come.
Burning during this month appears to be an effective means of reducing vigor of re-sprouting woody stems, especially on old-field lands.
Because it is a dry year, use ignition patterns that result in less intense burns and minimize crown scorch, e.g. spot ignition, lighting flanks into the wind, and using backing fire, instead of strip head fires.
Fire weather forecasters are predicting dry conditions through spring so get your burning done early.
Minimize the distance burned along major highway and county road edges in one day, and mop up aggressively.
Be aware of your smoke!!
Burning during the growing season promotes native seed production.
Forestry
Protect regeneration areas with new seedlings. Put off burning for 1 year where regeneration is needed.
Continue timber stand improvement thinning, hardwood removal and other cultural treatments in forest stands.
Conduct timber harvests
Game Bird
Supplemental feed at 2 bu/ac/yr in unburned cover to reduce predation and prepare birds for nesting
If changing feeding trail, establish summer feed trail
Focus on nest predator management as needed (See TTRS web site)
April is an excellent month for burning both old field and native ground cover habitats to prepare areas for summer brooding habitats
Burn such that burned and unburned areas exist within quail home ranges (about 50 acres)
Land Management
Check, freshen-up, or put in fire breaks as needed.
Conduct post-burn mowing of targeted problem hardwood areas to encourage grasses.
Apply triclopyr to control activey growing hardwoods
Make plans for herbicide control of domestic grasses
Conduct soil tests to determine lime and fertilizer rates for summer food plots and dove fields.
Plant dove fields
Plant duck ponds
Begin post burn evaluations
Vertebrate Ecology
Monitor gopher tortoise burrows in burned areas.
Monitor bluebird boxes.
Monitor wood duck boxes.
May Management Recommendations
Fire Ecology
Continue to conduct prescribed burns as needed.
Burning during the growing season promotes native seed production.
Choose appropriate conditions and extinguish by sunset to keep smoke off of major roads.
Forestry
Conduct longleaf cone and flower crop counts.
Where adequate longleaf cone crops are available begin conducting burns to capture seed fall that will occur later in the year. Some regrowth of understory vegetation will lower seed predation.
Continue timber stand improvement thinning, hardwood removal and other cultural treatments in forest stands.
Conduct timber harvests in suitable areas. Avoid harvesting timber in active Red-cockaded woodpecker nesting areas
Retain a few large upland hardwoods in the uplands (5-10 square feet basal area) for Sherman’s fox squirrel.
Game Bird
Complete burning of native ground cover areas where quail management is the focus.
In areas with few fields on old field land conduct some burns to provide late season brood habitat or to achieve hardwood re-sprout control.
Finish post-burn mowing and chopping by June 1, mowing in areas needing hardwood re-sprout control.
Supplemental feed at 2 bu/ac/yr.
Nest predator management if needed, especially important if avian predation has been higher than normal.
Complete timbering and clean-up activities on quail management areas.
Land Management
After May 15, begin treating cogon grass infestations as weather permits. Cogon grass can be identified by its inflorescence (white seed heads).
Apply lime according to soil test results.
Begin early herbicide applications.
Begin to mow roads.
Check water control structures and dikes on managed wetland areas for needed maintenance.
Plant dove fields.
Plant duck ponds.
Plant Chufa fields.
Vertebrate Ecology
The Red-cockaded Woodpecker nesting season gets underway in late April in the Red Hills region. Clear fuels away from cavity trees that have heavy sap build-up before you burn. Clearing fuels helps to minimize damage to the tree and the nesting site.
Installing inserts into pine trees provides valuable nesting habitat for the red-cockaded woodpecker.
Sherman’s fox squirrels can be seen digging in the dirt this time of year sniffing around for subterranean fungi (truffles). The tasty morsels keep squirrels going, but the process also helps the forest by dispersing nitrogen-fixing bacteria over large areas. Home range estimates for fox squirrels range from 10 to 40 acres, so these squirrels can distribute the fungus over very large areas.
With the extraordinarily warm winter, early spring bobwhites have begun pairing and nest building nearly a month earlier than usual. While the warm weather was not ideal for hunting, it did help with overwinter survival of quail. Our hawk counts over a 10-mile survey route were low this entire winter, and have remained about 20% of last year’s counts over the past several months. With low cotton rat numbers this year, few red-tailed hawks were in the region. The warm weather and few cold fronts appeared to keep migratory Cooper’s hawk numbers relatively low as well. Low disturbance and predation by hawks and owls reduces stress on the birds caused by predation and harassment from hawks. In addition, the recent rainfall has helped habitat recover quickly following early burning, and ragweed fields are growing rapidly providing early habitat. When overwinter survival is high, habitat is good, and densities are relatively low, quail tend to nest vigorously. Over the past 15 years, we have had very few nests incubated during April, but this March, we have already flushed pairs from perfectly formed nest bowls. Our hatch is off to a good start.
Endowment Support
The Game Bird Program is thrilled about the generous support our program has received through the Tall Timbers Endowment Campaign to reach its goal of six million dollars! This unprecedented level of funding will allow our program to continue to focus on long-term quail research in the Red Hills and Albany Areas and to tackle some of the most challenging issues in bobwhite ecology and management. Frankly, the cost of doing research over the past 15 years had escalated to the point that it threatened our capacity to do research. Not now! The stable funding provided by our endowment provides for research staff to radio-tag and track large samples of bobwhites every year, and to invest in the latest research innovations (such as micro transmitters for chicks) solidifies our ability to find limiting factors affecting bobwhite populations.
For instance, thanks to our endowment, we are able to begin new research to better understand what factors affect bobwhite chick survival on a daily basis. This groundbreaking work will identify what management can be done to offset the causes of chick mortality. Chick ecology remains one of the last pressing issues in bobwhite management that is still largely a “black box”. We know how many are hatched, and how many survive until the next spring, but what happens in between is unknown. It is important to find management solutions to low chick survival, because the majority of quail population declines are the result of below average chick survival. Improving survival, even 25%, would have huge implications for quail populations. We are excited about the potential for new research at Tall Timbers to provide innovative management ideas and help keep the Red Hills and Albany the best quail hunting areas in the world! Thank you to all that provided contributions and pledges to the Endowment Campaign for Game Bird Program research!
Prescribed fire is a safe way to apply a natural process, ensure ecosystem health, and reduce wildfire risk. Land managers and ecologists understand the natural process; fires have been part of the system since the beginning of time, and are as natural and important as wind and rain. We also understand the importance of prescribed burning to ensure ecosystem health; prescribed burning results in higher quality habitat for the early successional species, and increased water and air quality. Managers and the public can make the connection between prescribed burning and wildfire prevention; without the buildup of fuel (pine straw and leaf litter), the probability of a wildfire decreases, and the ability to suppress it increases. However, in today’s world with increasing populations, and more people living in the wildland urban interface, prescribed burn practitioners must put more emphasis on smoke management. If we don’t manage our smoke and the resulting negative impacts, then the public perception is that prescribed fires are bad, and they will push policy makers to take the ability to use prescribed fire away.
The majority of complaints and negative impacts of prescribed burns is a decrease in visibility on roads. Most issues occur in the early morning on roads near low lying areas. Smoke, just like water, will always move down stream and pool up. To make matters worse, this is where fog ends up, and where fog and smoke come together visibility is impacted. Fog may occur when the moisture content of the air is increased beyond the saturation point. During the spring burning season, fog occurs when the air is cooled below a critical temperature called the dew point. In all cases condensation of the excess moisture takes place on the microscopic dust particles in the atmosphere. However, when condensation of the excess moisture takes place on the Particulate Matter in smoke the “white out” phenomenon occurs, resulting in visibility reduction down to a few feet. A white out is usually the reason behind car pile ups on roads; drivers cannot see beyond the hood of the vehicle and quickly reduce speed, to make matters worse they cannot see whether they are on or off the road, and collisions occur. For most burn practitioners, dew point is the best way to predict whether fog will be present in the mornings.
There are many weather sources for prescribed burn practitioners; one that many practitioners use is listed below and shows hourly what the weather is predicted to do. Practitioners should take into consideration the probably of fog the morning following a burn and adjust their burn plan accordingly. The most important consideration is when the burn will be completed. When active fire is moving across the landscape late in the day and the smoke does not rise and mix with the transport winds, then smoke issues are going to occur. Proximity to smoke sensitive areas and acreage are other considerations; if the drainage in your burn unit leads to a road, you may want to reduce acres, and have all active fire out by 3:00 or 4:00 pm; then, go burn another area where the drainage doesn’t lead to a smoke sensitive area.
On Sunday April 8, the temperature will not reach the dew point; fog should not be present that morning. However on the Monday April 9, there will be fog starting around 6:00 a.m. It will begin burning off around 8:30.
Georgia and Florida landowners must apply by April 30
Gopher tortoises will receive some much needed help from a federal Farm Bill program. But interested landowners have only until April 30 to apply for financial assistance through the new Working Lands for Wildlife partnership.
The partnership pairs the Agricultural Department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in a conservation effort to restore populations of at-risk species and strengthen rural economies. Threatened by habitat loss, these large land turtles are state-listed as threatened and a candidate for federal protection in Georgia and the rest of their eastern range. (They are already federally listed in Mississippi, Louisiana and western Alabama.)
The program in Georgia will involve restoring and protecting gopher tortoises and their habitat in south Georgia, and to a lesser extent – because of limited habitat on private land – the golden-winged warbler in north Georgia. Landowners can apply by month’s end through the NRCS’ Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP). The cost of conservation practices will be shared for qualifying sites. Nongame Conservation Section Chief Mike Harris of Georgia DNR welcomed the new partnership. Referring to gopher tortoises, Harris said he’s “excited about the opportunity to focus Farm Bill programs on a species of concern that also benefits other wildlife.”
Working Lands for Wildlife will help private landowners in Georgia create, manage and maintain pine savanna habitat for breeding populations of gopher tortoises. The primary practices will be planting longleaf pine, conducting prescribed burns and removing mid-story hardwoods. A State Wildlife Grants project in which the Nongame Conservation Section inventoried Georgia’s sandhills habitat, favored by gopher tortoises, helped identify counties the program will benefit most.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has been working closely with USFWS and NRCS on this new cost-share opportunity for private landowners to receive funds specifically for managing gopher tortoise habitat. Of the $33 million from WHIP, to share the cost of conservation practices with landowners, approximately $6 million is reserved for improving gopher tortoise habitat throughout its range. The goal of this new funding initiative is to help reverse the decline of seven critical species including the gopher tortoise. This is an amazing opportunity for private landowners in Florida to help conserve this threatened reptile.
Interested producers and landowners in targeted areas can enroll in the WHIP on a continuous basis at their local NRCS field office. In Jefferson/Leon counties in Florida, contact: Steve Tullar, Soil Conservationist USDA-NRCS, 1250 N. Jefferson Street, Monticello, FL. Phone: 850-997-4058, ext 3 or email: steve.tullar@fl.usda.gov.
Saving pine savannas and tortoises
Longleaf pine forest, one of the world's most biologically diverse ecosystems, provides critical habitat for gopher tortoises and other imperiled species.
The gopher tortoise is a keystone species and indicator of longleaf pine ecosystem health.
Gopher tortoises depend on deep, well-drained soils and an open understory. In turn, their burrows provide vital shelter for many at-risk species. Gopher tortoises also help disperse plant seeds.
Habitat destruction, degradation and human predation have greatly reduced gopher tortoise populations. More than 90 million acres of the U.S. Southeast was once covered by longleaf pine savanna. About 3.4 million acres remain today.
More than 80 percent of gopher tortoise habitat is in private or corporate ownership.
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.
With the extraordinarily warm winter, early spring bobwhites have begun pairing and nest building nearly a month earlier than usual. While the warm weather was not ideal for hunting, it did help with overwinter survival of quail. Our hawk counts over a 10-mile survey route were low this entire winter, and have remained about 20% of last year’s counts over the past several months. With low cotton rat numbers this year, few red-tailed hawks were in the region. The warm weather and few cold fronts appeared to keep migratory Cooper’s hawk numbers relatively low as well. Low disturbance and predation by hawks and owls reduces stress on the birds caused by predation and harassment from hawks. In addition, the recent rainfall has helped habitat recover quickly following early burning, and ragweed fields are growing rapidly providing early habitat. When overwinter survival is high, habitat is good, and densities are relatively low, quail tend to nest vigorously. Over the past 15 years, we have had very few nests incubated during April, but this March, we have already flushed pairs from perfectly formed nest bowls. Our hatch is off to a good start.
For instance, thanks to our endowment, we are able to begin new research to better understand what factors affect bobwhite chick survival on a daily basis. This groundbreaking work will identify what management can be done to offset the causes of chick mortality. Chick ecology remains one of the last pressing issues in bobwhite management that is still largely a “black box”. We know how many are hatched, and how many survive until the next spring, but what happens in between is unknown. It is important to find management solutions to low chick survival, because the majority of quail population declines are the result of below average chick survival. Improving survival, even 25%, would have huge implications for quail populations. We are excited about the potential for new research at Tall Timbers to provide innovative management ideas and help keep the Red Hills and Albany the best quail hunting areas in the world! Thank you to all that provided contributions and pledges to the Endowment Campaign for Game Bird Program research!
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