#GivingTuesday is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration. Observed on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving and the widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving. We hope that you will consider a year-end-gift to Tall Timbers in support of Wildlife and Wildlands! Click HERE to donate.
18th Annual Kate Ireland Memorial Dinner & Auction
Presented by The Kate Ireland Foundation, North Florida Animal Hospital and Four Oaks Plantation, the 18th Annual Kate Ireland Memorial Dinner & Auction was held Sunday evening, September 20 at Pebble Hill Plantation’s Uno Hill Barn, in Thomas County, Georgia.
The festivities kicked off with a cocktail reception where guests perused auction items. This year’s live auction featured a first of its kind shotgun—the Tall Timbers Longleaf Gun—for which Tall Timbers commissioned Scottish bespoke gun maker David McKay Brown to create. The gun is a 28-gauge round-action side-by-side, embellished with a classic scroll intertwined with longleaf pine motifs (cones, needles, foliage). The engravings also include a still life of bobwhite designed by collaborating artist C. D. Clarke. Italy’s Mirko Agnellini engraved the gun.
Over 230 guests dined “family style” on a sumptuous dinner prepared with fare from the Red Hills featuring sorghum glazed quail prepared by Liam’s Restaurant.
Named in honor of one of Tall Timbers’ most treasured supporters, the Kate Ireland Memorial Dinner & Auction is a fundraising event held annually benefitting Tall Timbers Foundation, Inc., for Tall Timbers research and conservation programs. This event attracts bidders not only from within the Red Hills Region, but due to auction items unique to this event, our auction attracts a national audience. Each year the auction features an inspiring collection of world class artwork, unparalleled hunting and fishing opportunities, and unique offerings from the Red Hills Region and beyond.
The event raised over $200,000 with support of the presenting sponsors along with our event sponsors, guests, and auction participants and donors. Thank you!
Tall Timbers would like to thank the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE) as well as Garden & Gun Magazine for including Tall Timbers in the 36th annual celebration of wildlife & sporting art in Charleston, South Carolina. The Cocktails & Conservation event, Saturday, February 17, hosted by Garden & Gun, featured our very own Dr. Bill Palmer and Garden & Gun contributing author Eddie Nickens. The two gentlemen shared their knowledge on quail, land management and prescribed fire with the over 200 event attendees. It was a wonderful opportunity for Tall Timbers to be in the spotlight with wildlife enthusiasts.
Click here to see a SEWE recap video that includes a comment by Bill Palmer.
Pictured L-R: David DiBenedetto (VP for Garden & Gun), Eddie Nickens and Bill Palmer
Tall Timbers featured as Hearth & Soul’s February Non-Profit Partner
Tall Timbers would like to thank Hearth & Soul for featuring us as their February non-profit partner. Hearth & Soul is “a unique concept in retail that is reminiscent of the home as a gathering place.” On Thursday, February 17, they hosted a Meet the Makers event at their store featuring Tall Timbers. Over 100 participants attended the event and learned about Tall Timbers’ programs. Throughout the month of February, Hearth & Soul sold a special candle—Sea Pines—with one-hundred percent of the net proceeds benefitting Tall Timbers. Makers of local artisan goods were on hand. Tim Edmonds, an artisan of handcrafted serving boards, Lisa Phipps designer of Chic Verte jewelry and P. W. Bryant of Bespoke Feather Hats displayed and sold their items at the event. On the patio, Tall Timbers displayed its outreach and education animals, which included bobwhite quail, box turtles, a gopher tortoise and several non-venomous snakes—a big hit with the kids. Inside, Dr. Monica Rother showcased the beautiful longleaf pine sections that show fire history. Additionally, Rose Rodriguez, Director of Communications for Tall Timbers and co-author of the book, George M. Sutton’sWatercolors for Georgia Birds: A New Look, signed copies that were for sale at the event. It was a wonderful evening celebrating Tall Timbers and its mission.
Tall Timbers’ Georgia-Florida Turkey Invitational Benefits the Game Bird Program
For the 13th year, teams of two hunters will take to the woods in the Red Hills, talking turkey to attract a winning gobbler. This year the Georgia-Florida Turkey Invitational is April 12 and 13. Special guest Joe Hutto is the speaker at the Kick-off Supper & Registration, Thursday, April 12, at 6:00 PM held at Osceola Plantation Lodge in Thomas County, Georgia.
Joe Hutto is a nationally-known naturalist and author of Illumination in the Flatwoods, where he revealed the secret lives of wild turkeys to great critical acclaim; Hutto’s book resulted in the Emmy Award–winning PSB documentary My Life as a Turkey.
Friday, April 13, hunters will meet at the Osceola Plantation Barn at 12 noon for the Weigh-In & Awards Luncheon. Ricky Lackey, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation turkey biologist will serve as the offcial judge. There will be a Calcutta and raffle with prizes for first, second and third place. The first place winner will have their team engraved on the Perpetual Trophy and have their bird mounted by Harden’s Taxidermy. Each winner receives an engraved silver cup.
Tall Timbers thanks the host committee for this year’s invitational: Knox Parker (chair), Stephen Demott, Shane Drew, Robbie Green, Jay Kimbrel, Tim Miles and Bubba White.
For more information, to become a sponsor or register a team, contact Development Director, Crystal Davis: Phone 850.5452162.4153 or email. For details, including a registration form, click here.
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!
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
Selected Publications authored by Wildland Fire Science staff.
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.
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.
The festivities kicked off with a cocktail reception where guests perused auction items. This year’s live auction featured a first of its kind shotgun—the Tall Timbers Longleaf Gun—for which Tall Timbers commissioned Scottish bespoke gun maker David McKay Brown to create. The gun is a 28-gauge round-action side-by-side, embellished with a classic scroll intertwined with longleaf pine motifs (cones, needles, foliage). The engravings also include a still life of bobwhite designed by collaborating artist C. D. Clarke. Italy’s Mirko Agnellini engraved the gun.
