jim67
Eight Pointer
I was wondering if anyone ever had a wildlife biologist come out to their property to help with deer hunting habitat. Does it cost anything or is there a better rout? Thanks, Jim
I've never had one out to my place, but I've worked with ncwrc biologist on other people's properties. The guy I've worked with through the years works for ncwrc but makes the recommendations for the nrcs cost share plans. Some of the cost share programs provide funding to improve wildlife habitat. EQIP,CRP and a few other programs pay pretty well, and the biologist can help you get a management plan in place.
We had our biologist come out, spent half a morning walking around the property with him.. another tech came out & was supposed to do the site plan, never heard from her. Landowner is a member of NWTF & got up with a forester through them.. took him a couple weeks to get us a 5yr plan.
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Yeah thats what she told us when she came out.There's only one or two stewardship biologists for the whole state, so Kelly stays pretty swamped.
I've never had one out to my place, but I've worked with ncwrc biologist on other people's properties. The guy I've worked with through the years works for ncwrc but makes the recommendations for the nrcs cost share plans. Some of the cost share programs provide funding to improve wildlife habitat. EQIP,CRP and a few other programs pay pretty well, and the biologist can help you get a management plan in place.
Your place sounds similar to my families property, surrounded by thick cover and at the mercy of neighbors to some extent. It sounds like you are doing some good stuff already. May want to release some of your dominate oaks if they are crowded. Cutting the trees around the dominate oaks will promote acorn production as well as let some sunlight reach the forest floor to promote understory growth. Depending on who you ask and what research you believe fertilizing the dominate oaks may help as well. Can't really hunt on a small scale anyway.
I have noticed that once poplar stands close canopy there is little habitat benefit in the understory. If you can figure a pattern which allow you to get to your stands without getting busted or busting your butt, I would say continue to work on thinning/clearing/hinge cutting some of the poplars. The fresh grown from the cut stumps will serve as browse and you may get some other growth to pop back up with the canopy removed.
While small tract can be a challenge there is a silver lining. With just 19 acres the property will not qualify for reduced taxes under the present use value system.(unless you have another tract that does qualify) This allows you to manage how you want without the fear of losing your tax break.
Good luck & let us know how it goes. I'm sure you will get some good info. Keep one thing in mind though....he will be looking at the property through a biologists eyes..Not necessarily a hunters eyes. Sometimes suggestions they make need to be modified in order to benefit a hunting scenario. Having awesome habitat is great...but if your plan doesn't account for how to hunt the property effectively using that habitat it won't do much good. Keep that in mind when deciding where to place certain habitat components.Well guys, I called the wildlife biologist today. He called me back and said after deer season he would be glad to come out and go over the property. Very nice guy, I cant wait.
Good luck & let us know how it goes. I'm sure you will get some good info. Keep one thing in mind though....he will be looking at the property through a biologists eyes..Not necessarily a hunters eyes. Sometimes suggestions they make need to be modified in order to benefit a hunting scenario. Having awesome habitat is great...but if your plan doesn't account for how to hunt the property effectively using that habitat it won't do much good. Keep that in mind when deciding where to place certain habitat components.
I had a discussion with an NCWRC regional biologist once and it was similar to your experience. We were talking on the phone about an unrelated issue and the conversation turned to how many does do we kill, I said we have "x" acreage and he said "I'd give you "y" number of doe tags right off the bat". Heck, we had a long history of records and we were TRYING to kill half of the number that he recommended as a "start". Like you, he didn't know if we had 90 percent fields, water, whatever, he had a set number. I didn't bother him any more for his experience.We had a wildlife biologist come do a survey on our lease, it was 1300 acres in the shape of a J...he recommended that we kill at least 20 does per year without looking at our 10+ years of harvest records. I asked him, "based on what" ??? He said he had done a "track survey" on the way in.
That was enough for me, we didn't hardly see 20 does in a year with the neighbors killing everything they saw. He didn't take that, or the harvest into consideration. He also said he couldn't see a "browse line"..we are in Alabama, there isn't a winter kill with a lot of the green browse, so there's not a browse line unless the population is extremely over the capacity.
Gotta watch those biologists , sometimes they don't use good logic.