Texas Wildlife December 2009
by
Henry Chappell
Spend time with quail hunters of a certain age, especially toward the end of a five-hour drive home from the lease, and you’re likely to hear something like, “Used to, a man could whistle up his dog and shoot a few birds on the back forty.” Since I can remember finding one or two coveys in the small pastures and creek bottom below my grandfather’s barn, I suppose I’m “of a certain age.”
Of course, fond memories, like snapshots, aren’t to be trusted, especially after time has sharpened the subject and blurred context. If, like me, you are a quail hunter of a certain age, perhaps you noticed, as I did at 14, that at certain times of day and during certain stretches of the hunting season, the home coveys seemed absent. That’s because you didn’t have two coveys on the back forty. Rather, at times, two coveys, part of a larger quail population living on hundreds if not thousands of acres of contiguous habitat, or substantial islands of habitat connected by wildlife corridors, spent time on your back forty.
There will not be a wild, self-sustaining population of quail on a forty- or fifty-acre island of habitat, no matter how perfect that habitat might be. Short of very intensive and expensive management, anything less than several hundred acres may be inadequate. To avoid inbreeding, quail go through disbursements or “shuffles.” Obviously, the birds need somewhere to shuffle to. Nesting and brood-rearing are tenuous enterprises, even in the best habitat. Bermuda lawns won’t do, no matter the abundance of bird feeders or scarcity of housecats.
When I settled in Plano in the early 1980s, I started a bird dog pup on wild bobwhites in the “unimproved” sections of a large park a few miles from my home. Although the building boom was on, the park was bounded on one side by erstwhile farmland – rough, long-mistreated Blackland Prairie in various stages of regeneration - that the developers hadn’t gotten around to. The bulldozers eventually arrived, of course. I haven’t heard a bobwhite’s whistle in that park in more than 20 years, even though all of the necessary habitat components are still present in the rougher areas. Isolated on an island of habitat surrounded by a sea of brick homes, the small bobwhite population winked out. More adaptable species like squirrels, coyotes, raccoons, cottontails, and even bobcats are thriving there.
Economic justifications aside, this is habitat fragmentation of the most obvious and brutal kind. Fragmentation in rural areas tends to be more insidious. A subdivided farm or ranch here, a highway expansion there. Native prairie converted to Bermuda pasture. Bottomland inundated by reservoirs, overstocking, poor timber management, brush encroachment, over-clearing of brush, cultivation of highly erodible land – steady degradation as opposed to outright destruction, easy to underestimate if not miss altogether. Now you’ll hear, “I used to hunt birds around here all the time. I don’t know what happened. I reckon fire ants [or hawks or raccoons, or bobcats or coyotes] got ‘em all.”
To a degree, the old-timer’s bafflement is understandable. After all, he still sees wooly fields of bluestem, sumac, croton and sunflower, the sort of place an experienced quail hunter eyes, and thinks, “There ought to be a covey in there.” There would be, but for the commercial pine plantation and close-cropped horse pasture between this field and the next small patch of habitat that could support a single covey for part of a year.
Joining Forces to Combat Habitat Fragmentation
Across Texas, but especially east of I-35, land ownership patterns are tending toward smaller properties as farms, ranches, and forestland are subdivided. Obviously, this creates the potential for habitat fragmentation as different landowners use their properties for different purposes. But even when adjacent properties are used for the same purpose – ranching, say – an increasing number of owners increases the potential for another kind of fragmentation or discontinuity: inconsistent wildlife management due to differences in landowner priority and knowledge, and differing values among hunters.
Consider two small, adjacent hunting leases, about 600 acres each. Obviously, differences in grazing and brush management could mean drastic differences in quality of wildlife habitat. If wildlife is a high priority in Landowner A’s overall management scheme and a low priority in Landowner B’s plan, we can expect better hunting on Landowner A’s property and, most likely, more profit from the leasing of hunting rights. This is all good for Landowner A and his satisfied hunters, and maybe good for Landowner B if his priorities are met. Maybe not, if he’s cash-strapped or poorly informed.
Wildlife moves with no regard for legal boundaries. In good habitat, a whitetail buck, when he’s not chasing does, may live most of his life within a square mile. Unless he lives on a ranch of at least a few thousand acres, or within a high fence, his home range will almost certainly encompass parts of more than one property.
Even if most of our buck’s home range is on Property A, he will, at times, be forced to forage or seek refuge on Property B or another adjacent property. The odds that he will reach his genetic potential and that his progeny will thrive are lessened by the marginal habitat on Property B. Thus, by improving his habitat, Landowner B not only quietens his heretofore grumbling hunters, he improves the hunting across the fence on Property A because we now have 1,200 contiguous acres of excellent wildlife habitat. If adjacent landowners get onboard, fragmentation is further reduced, much to the benefit of wildlife, landowners, hunters and other outdoor recreationists, and even the local economy.
Increasingly, Texas landowners are moving beyond neighborly cooperation to form associations to more efficiently manage their lands for wildlife. These organizations of landowners and hunters are called Wildlife Management Associations (not to be confused with wildlife management areas) or, more commonly, wildlife co-ops.
The idea isn’t new. In 1955, landowners in Bee, Goliad, and Karnes counties formed the Tri-County Game Preserve Association for the purpose of improving cover and conditions for wildlife. Despite its name, the organization wasn’t merely concerned with wildlife preservation or offering hunters the opportunity to hunt released game.
Rather, the group sought input from professional wildlife biologists, committed to an eight-point habitat improvement program, and agreed to inventory game and keep harvest records. The era of the modern co-op began in 1973 when landowners in the Gonzales area formed the Peach Creek Wildlife Management Co-op for the purpose of improving habitat for whitetail deer.
Although TPW biologists Dennis Brown and Donnie Harmel worked with the Peach Creek landowners to develop a wildlife plan, they stressed that the landowners would have to organize and implement the prescribed habitat improvements. Otherwise, the project would appear to be government interfering with private business.
Today, more than 150 co-ops or WMAs are working to improve wildlife habitat in Texas. That number continues to grow. Not surprisingly, most of these are concentrated in the eastern half of the state where fragmentation has been most pronounced and destructive.
TPW biologists help co-op members develop management plans that take into account their properties’ livestock and wildlife histories. Often, plans call for wildlife surveys and various kinds of record keeping. In addition to the benefits of habitat improvements, co-ops may be eligible for special TPW permits such as the Managed Land Deer Permit.
Case Study: Donalson Creek Co-op
In 2001, freelance outdoor writer, photographer and TWA member John Jefferson asked TPW biologist Mike Kruger about the feasibility of forming a co-op that would include Jefferson’s Lampasas County deer lease and surrounding properties.
Kruger responded enthusiastically, as did the owner of the ranch that includes Jefferson’s lease.
“She was very excited about the social aspect,” Jefferson says. “Most of the people at the first meeting were friends and neighbors she invited. The social potential can’t be overstressed.”
While meetings encourage landowner cooperation, there’s another, less obvious benefit.
“When you’re sitting around drinking coffee, eating doughnuts and swapping hunting stories, it’s a lot easier to learn to trust your neighbor on the lease just across the fence,” Jefferson says. “It fosters cooperation between hunters as well as landowners.”
This is critical for hunters working to increase the quality of bucks on their leases. It can be difficult to convince fellow lessees to shoot only mature bucks when they know that the folks on the lease across the fence will shoot the first buck they see.
Of course high fencing effectively solves that problem, but it’s very expensive and does nothing to stop other game such as deer and turkey from crossing into a lease where hunters shoot everything that’s legal and then some.
Jefferson and participating Lampasas County landowners and hunters formed the Donalson Creek Co-op with about 6,000 acres. Since then, their acreage has more than doubled. Per their charter, they perform spotlight surveys and maintain harvest records. Managed Land Deer Permits lengthen the hunting season and allow lessees to take more does and spike bucks than would be allowed by a standard hunting license.
The result so far? “There’s no question that, as a whole, we’re shooting an older class of buck,” Jefferson says. “And we’re hearing stories of the mythical 150-point buck that a few folks have seen. You’d never have heard those stories before we formed our co-op.”
Cooperating neighbors – hunters as well as landowners – also fight poaching by serving as a neighborhood crime watch.
Starting A Co-op
Your district’s TPW wildlife biologist can provide a basic co-op agreement that can be tailored to meet specific needs. Most co-ops are founded by landowners; however, as John Jefferson demonstrated, hunters can take the initial step. From there, it’s a matter of bringing people together.
Landowner agreements are not legally binding. Rather, co-op members agree to a good-faith effort to abide by the agreement and associated wildlife management program designed by the consulting TPW biologist.
Given increasing absentee landownership, many co-ops consult the office of their County Tax Appraisal District for maps and landowner contact information. Absentee owners are often very enthusiastic about managing for wildlife.
The next step is to organize a meeting of landowners, hunters, and participating biologists. Jefferson also recommends inviting the local game warden. Oftentimes, leaders are chosen and agreements are drafted right away, but the most important function of the initial meeting is to develop friendship, trust, and a sense of shared purpose.
Landowners needn’t agree to every recommendation, and those who choose not to participate are likely to come away with increased feelings of neighborliness. Even with only partial landowner participation, co-ops can be very successful.
For decades, economic trends have fragmented human relations as well as wildlife habitat. The success of wildlife co-ops reminds that the most productive and satisfying work begins with a handshake, friendship, and trust.
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GETTING STARTED
To connect with your local wildlife biologist, contact Texas Parks & Wildlife Department – www.tpwd.state.tx.us
TPW also publishes “A Guide for Wildlife Management Associations and Co-ops.” http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_bk_w7000_0336.pdf
For additional information and support, contact Texas Organization of Wildlife Management Associations – www.towma.org