Episode 4 - Finding Natural Resource Professionals in Texas and Wildlife Tax Valuations with Dr. Jim Cathey
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Hi, welcome back to the Land Steward Podcast. I'm your host BW and I am absolutely excited to be back in this cozy booth with you because it is a rainy, solid 36 degrees outside right now in College Station and I don't know about you, but sometimes I think I'm a cold weather person and I don't know that that I actually am. I think I am a native Texan, and I am perfectly okay with being warm. So, happy new year. I am happy to bring you back in for our first episode of 2024. I think we ended 2023 - tell me if you feel like this is resonating with you - a little bit on a reflective note. It was definitely a year of a lot of learning and shifting for us making sure that we are ready to get into the new year, you know, it's just kind of this prompting of maybe a refresher or new beginnings but we're looking to do better with less and to figure out how to be very purposeful with our time which is, I think for anybody, anywhere, very stretched, especially in natural resources, where there's a lot of work left to be done.
So, for us, moving into the new year with this, you know, this purpose and this idea of how do we teach and serve people better and stay connected with you. So, I'm excited to just kind of kick this, this new year off with episode four of how to find a natural resource professional in Texas. This is near and dear to my heart because it is chock full of personal experiences that I am really excited to share with you. So - what a great time to be a land steward. Just thinking about those moments where we step back and say, you know, again, how do we do this better? What resources do we have? Who is here to lean on so that we don't feel like we have to make these gigantic impacts or changes or approach these challenges alone? The natural resources world is full of some of the most brilliant people I have ever met. They're dedicated, they're passionate, and they have insight that's extremely relatable, and they're ready to share that with you.
I'm just going to take a moment to dive into the Natural Resources Institute inbox. You can email us at nri@tamu.edu and I'll link that in the show notes for you, or Abigail will - Abigail is your producer. So, every solid sound that you hear from me is truly the work of Abigail Holmes. So, I'm just doing a silent golf clap for her right now for making sure that your listening experience is optimum but she also adds all of these resources in the show notes for every episode for you. So, we're going to link that inbox down in the show notes. So, if you have a question, if you know somebody who has a natural resource challenge, if you're looking for any kind of resource. If you're looking for maybe a field guide, if you're looking for a contact, if you just have maybe a problem using one of the many digital tools that are out there, or maybe finding a workshop, like just drop us a note, it comes straight to my inbox. And I am always very happy to be able to connect people with those resources. And that, I mean, that's part of my job. That's why I'm here. So always feel free to reach out. Please know that you're probably not the only person with this question. Or what, you know, the only person looking for these resources, because sometimes as brilliant as the world of natural resources is there's a lot out there. And there's… sometimes it can be a little bit piecemeal depending on where you are entering into this process of land stewardship and conservation.
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Diving into this inbox right before Thanksgiving, I got an email and I'm going to pull it up real quick because it was, you know, just one of those emails that you get maybe every couple of months, and I am just elated to be able to, you know, either connect them with the resources that they need or just have a conversation with them. He says, “Hey guys. I have a friend who owns 1,500 acres on a Texas ranch. He's looking to maximize the deer herd in addition to do some just general habitat restoration.” He said, “I've worked as a wildlife biologist since 1998,” so you already know this guy is coming from a place of expertise and he's recognizing maybe some of those challenges that are instinctual for him and he's trying to figure out where can I help, where can I connect my friends to some of these resources. He's mostly worked outside of Texas though. He's… and he's worked with more threatened endangered species which if you've listened to episode two and three you know all about how we're working with endangered species and sometimes that's not the top of the list for some landowners. So, he says, "I don't have a great foundation on the management aspect, especially relative to whitetail deer." He said, "There are some obvious issues of invasives," and he's talking in terms of more vegetation. He said, "Is there an entity that would do removal or maintenance, either for the overall good of the riparian system, or maybe for a fee?" In terms of the deer herd management, he said is that a thing that he would pay a private consultant to do or does Texas Parks and Wildlife offer assistance there? Finally, he said are there any workshops, webinars, trainings, or just different events that he could connect him to that he could also attend personally to be able to support his friend.
So, I was able to respond to him mostly from a place of “I have the resources for you, and at least a good starting place, but also, I wanted to share with him the experiences that I had personally as a private landowner. As somebody who comes from a multi-generational ranch in the Hill Country. So, I responded to this guy and just shared with him first that the Natural Resources Institute has a resource that's called How to Find a Natural Resource Professional in Texas. It started out as a private land stewardship academy lesson, and we wanted to be able to build this very easy and relatable streamlined kind of lesson or tool that you could kind of go throughout your own pace. It does not take very long, and you can choose the parts that are most relevant to you as your starting point as you're trying to get connected to these people and resources who are specifically there to help support you as a land steward.
And then I shared with him, you know, we started, well, I'm gonna say, well, let's, you know, kind of take our time machine back to 2018. I started really realizing that one of the greatest benefits of working with the Natural Resources Institute is that I'm surrounded by natural resource professionals all day long. That is something that, I mean, it took me a little bit to feel confident enough to just kind of knock on their door or tap on their shoulder and say, "Hey, I have a couple of questions. I know this is your area of expertise. What do I need to do? What are my options here? What are my challenges? What am I looking at here? Can we lay it out on the table?" And I cannot tell you how grateful I have been every year working with these people who will put down everything that they're doing to make the time to teach, to work with, to connect with land stewards, especially in Texas.
So, my first experience kind of getting into this was actually attending a conference and it was a women led, really geared towards women landowners. It was the Bennett Trust Land Steward Conference, so they have two a year. I'm also going to link this down in the show notes for you. If you're interested, they have a spring conference which is just their general land steward anybody can attend. If you're looking for advice, if you're looking forward to get to know resources that are in the area, people, contacts, contacts, financial assistance, technical advice. It's a beautiful conference held in the Hill Country. And then in the fall for my women listeners out there, they have a women-only land stewardship conference. And attending that was really eye-opening for me. This was kind of at the beginning of my journey of trying to navigate what being the seventh or possibly eighth generation - it's up for debate between me and my grandfather - landowner and what that meant, what my role meant. How I could contribute. What it looked like to still be working with, I mean, there are three, three generations, I mean, who are still involved in this process, who are still very active, who still have seats at the table on decisions that are being made, who still manage from a priority of cattle operation, and not from a priority of how do we look at the soil after generations of prioritizing a cattle operation? When we are over capacity on our wildlife that are out here, which are competing on native vegetation with the cattle operation that's here, and then how do we look at water resources and try to make this beautiful balance of management practices because it is a important to meet an economic bottom line.
So, all that to say this conference was my first I would say entrance into making sure that I knew what existed and that that's definitely my personality type. When I am approaching something, I want to see what's on the table. I want to see all the resources that are there and then I'm pretty quick to start moving forward and I'm okay with making mistakes. I'm okay with understanding that there's value in those mistakes and those… those experiences and I learn more by making mistakes than… than doing it right a hundred percent of the time and I'm comfortable with that from a land stewardship standpoint because thankfully the land is forgiving most of the time. And if we make a misstep, now we have more information and more data to work with as long as we are diligent in documenting and making sure that we understand different variables that are going on. So, the Bennett Trust Land Conference was my first segue into that.
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And then I was able to attend this incredible course called Generation Next. I encourage you to either look it up or share it with somebody who is kind of either new to the land, they're working with small acreage, or they are also trying to find their role in land stewardship and in that conversation. Trying to figure out how they can contribute. We're also, I'm also gonna put that in the show notes for you. The next one starts January 29th and you can still get in and register if you're interested in that now. So basically, yeah, it's a 12-week course and you learn from experts regarding land management techniques and resources, alternative-ranching operations, ecotourism opportunities, insurance and tax considerations, direct marketing and so much more. I do remember listening to a lot of the courses because it's either by video or you can listen, just stick your headphones in and glean what you can from these experts that are on this incredible course. I actually did a lot of gardening listening to listening to some of these the courses over the weeks. It was definitely something that, when we were traveling from College Station to the ranch. So, you know, just anytime that you're traveling, you've got dashboard time, anytime you're in the office and you've got your headphones in.
They were, I would say, brilliant pieces of education for me and by the end of that course you get essentially a ranch management plan. You can build a business plan, you can build sort of, you can kind of morph the document and how it would meet your needs the best and it just gives you something to start. It gives you something to look at over the years and know that you've built a baseline for some of your land management practices. So, Generation Next I highly recommend. The people who are on the course were some of the best that I've been able to listen to and learn things from over time and they're great partners. They're people that you could pick up the phone tomorrow and have a great conversation with them and get the help and the resources that you need as a land steward.
So, you quickly find that your world in land stewardship and natural resources become smaller and smaller every day in a really awesome way and you become you know neighbors and you build great relationships with these people over time. So, I'd highly encourage that if that is where you are in your journey as a land steward and in your connection to the land, whatever that might look like.
So, in addition to attending these two conferences, I took this resource that we built, “How to Find a Natural Resource Professional in Texas”, opened it up and just started from the beginning and said, "All right, we're going to do this for our property and I want to make sure as a communicator that the user experience of this lesson makes make sense for the people we're sharing it with from the Institute. I'm gonna take it, use it as a case study, and then move from there.” So, it was an incredible email response to be able to say I've used this resource for our own personal ranch. We have gone through the same questions that you have here for your friend and his 1500-acre ranch in Texas. It's a lot of land, a lot of different dynamics and variables between wildlife, the land and soil stewardship, water conservation, especially where they are in South Texas, and then possibly them having cattle out there. So it is, there's a lot, but it's definitely manageable. It's definitely doable with the resources that are out there. And then I was able to share with him a couple of the resources that, you know, the very specific people that we talk to and then what the results and the outcomes of those were. So, I'm going to pop into this lesson and just kind of walk you through a couple of things that you're going to find and the value that we took on the Pike Davis Ranch and the value that I think you can take as a land steward yourself no matter where you are entering into this process.
[15:36] – The Lesson
Okay, so I have the lesson up and on the first page you see “How to Find Natural Resource Professionals in Texas”. It's quite possible I've been saying this wrong the entire time, but that's okay. “How to Find Natural Resource Professionals in Texas”. The benefits - right off the bat, you see four logos: Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, Texas A&M Forest Service, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and NRCS, the Natural Resources Conservation Service. So, if you have four entities that you're going to lean on as a land steward, as a landowner, to go to first to get these conversations started on how to make the best possible decisions doing better with less, knowing that you can make a positive impact and you don't have to do it alone, this is where I would start, this is where I did start.
So, there are a multitude of benefits for landowners who just simply take the time and effort to contact your local natural resource professionals, including gaining knowledge about natural resource issues, meeting new people who have a wealth of information and experience, people who have figured it out so that you don't have to go through all of the trial and error. They have data, they have resources, they know all the variables that you're working with, and they'll come and set foot on your property if you want them to. They will walk through, they will do a site visit with you, and they will put eyes on what those challenges are that you're facing so that you know you're getting the best information in real time based on your unique situation.
There's definitely potential financial gain through some of the incentive programs that are there. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about that and a campaign that I led for longleaf landowners which was monumental at the time for financial assistance, and then the creation of written wildlife forest or ranch plans specifically focused on your property. Those documents are going to be helpful not just for you but for the plans that you might have later on down the road. Even things like how you classify your property with the county appraiser’s office. If you want to do the 1-d-1 wildlife tax valuation, those are documents that you'll need to have. They are I wouldn't necessarily say a one-and-done deal. They're definitely living documents based on the management practices that you implement because you hope to see change based on some of those things that you've adopted, and they could be very small tweaks that really make a huge impact later on down the road.
[18:16] – AgriLife Extension
So, beginning with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, their mission which is, you know, very powerful, but something I want to read to you. “The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service works daily to make Texas better for providing innovative solutions at the intersection of agriculture, natural resources, youth and health, thereby improving the well-being of individuals, families, businesses, communities through education and service.” So, through this lesson, you get to read about their areas of expertise. So, mitigating drought impacts, highly important for Texas, for most of the state of Texas. East Texas, I don't really know if you count here cause you get way more rain than the rest of us, but I do know that you go through drought periods, so you can be included in the conversation. Water conservation, livestock management, row crop management, wildlife management. And you get to see some of the imagery there of projects that they work on. And then here's a really important part of this section - their services and programs. So, they have Texas Wildlife Services. So, they are specifically here to help when you have invasive species, when you have wildlife management issues, talk to Texas Wildlife Services. There's a link here for you.
The next program is the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, specifically there to help get you the right science that you need and maybe a little bit of testing. We did a lot of soil testing, both properties in East Texas and the Hill Country, and it is, I would say, foundational for making sure that you are managing and you understand the soil and the different aspects that are going on under the grass. The Beef Cattle Short Course, this happens once a year. I think it's normally in August, but I'll put a link down in the show notes for you. It is highly interactive, a very comprehensive, I don't wanna say convention, but a lot of great, I would say, educational opportunities from, you know, definitely looking at natural resources. Again, you see some of the youth and health, and then definitely looking at the well-being of your management situation that you have on your property. The Biological and Agricultural Engineering Extension is also on here so they can help with things like irrigation, water management, water resources management, and animal feeding operation and engineering.
Okay, the second most important part of this after their programs and getting to know kind of what they do and how they can serve you outside of just knowing that they have a network of some of the most well-connected Extension folks. Extension agents for each county, and then also your specialists who are kind of on call for the entire state but they have the best information for you and I am very lucky to be able to work with them and pass them in the hallways every day at Texas A&M. So, this is how you get connected. This last section of your AgriLife Extension part of this lesson is that you can figure out who your people are, who exactly the human is that you need to contact. So, you can search by county, or you can search on the AgriLife Extension website. So, the easiest thing is to go by county, find where you're located, and there's a list of people who you can call and they're waiting for you to call them. They are expecting your call. That's their job. That's what they're dedicated to is being there and being available to you.
[21:44] – Texas A&M Forest Service
So, the next section of this is the Texas A&M Forest Service. So those of you who do have trees and not just vast open spaces in desert land, or farmland, or bay this is for you. So, the Texas A&M Forest Service provides statewide leadership to assure the state's trees, forests, and related natural resources are protected and sustained to benefit for all. So, their areas of expertise are obviously forest management and then wildfire and disaster management. You've seen these guys before. You've seen their trucks before just like you've probably seen AgriLife Extension. They are everywhere and they're called on for their expertise in a lot of different situations. So, if you're like me and your very first, probably emotional experience watching a wildfire, the Bastrop Fires. I just remember feeling so, I don't know, so connected but also just so much empathy and a lot of like raw emotion about that, the entire situation and just being at a point in my life around that time that I could appreciate the efforts that were being done to put out the fire, to be able to be present, to be able to be responsive to the people, the landowners, the homes, the people who were there, and to try and help them as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. But as a student, I remember seeing all of the Texas A&M Forest Service trucks coming through in response to that situation. And it was just one of those moments of, wow, to be on call, to be able to serve in that way and to be able to be the experts in a lot of different ways was just very eye-opening for me.
So, the services and programs. They have wildfire and disaster response, obviously, preparing for it and preventing wildfires. This is especially important if you are planning to do prescribed burns, which is highly recommended, one of your most impactful, least expensive management opportunities that you have because the land is meant to be naturally burned and the more we suppress that, the higher our risks are to experience uncontrolled wildfires. So, they also have forest and land management programs. So, they have forestry staff that helps to make sure that your forest lands are productive and healthy, not just for the environment, but definitely for generations of Texans to come. They have urban and community forestry support. So, they have foresters across the state who are dedicated to making sure that we can monitor, measure, and assess changes to the state's urban forests over time. They do have a data, kind of like a data lab, and they have tons of tools for you to be able to map out different transects on your property if you need to. So, they say here they provide “focused and high priority innovation and expertise through leadership in forest resource analysis, ecosystem services, emergency response, predictive services, and geospatial systems.” And the last program here is their educational resources and programs, which are just sort of a, they're learning opportunities so that they offer that you can kind of join or, you know, be a part of some of these learning communities. So lastly, contact a forester. You have somebody, if you're within a forestry range, you have somebody who's assigned to your area and somebody who you can call and talk to today, tomorrow, next week, whenever you're comfortable, about resources and they have people that will come and figure out what you need to do. They'll come and meet you. If you need a virtual handshake, that's great, but they will definitely meet you at the gate and figure out how they can support you in your land management efforts.
[25:40] – Landowner Longleaf Challenge
So, the story I wanted to share with you where we were able to partner with the Texas A&M Forest Service on a project was the Landowner Longleaf Challenge, which is a cheesy campaign name that I fell in love with, to help make sure that we're aware of the landowners along sort of the southeast region of the U.S. and the east part of Texas that may have longleaf on their property or a part of the historical longleaf pine range. Longleaf is quickly dwindling because it was, this is off top of my head, so please forgive me if any of this is slightly incorrect, but I'm pretty sure it was one of the fastest growing pines way, way back in the day and it became also the most quickly harvested pines. So as we know, as we deplete our natural resources sometimes they become hard to find so they have their historic range is just massive and to look at that range compared to where they appear now and where we know we have confirmed longleaf pine is kind of heartbreaking but we ran this campaign to make sure that we were aware of the landowners who were in those areas. And just with the idea that there's a possibility that there could be more longleaf than what we're aware of.
Again, going back to, we talked about this, I think somewhere along episode one and two, you know, Texas is a private land state and we are completely dependent - we as in researchers, biologists, natural resource professionals, conservation-minded individuals - are limited to our access based on our relationships with private landowners and where there are private landowners who are willing to collaborate and allow us just to get in and figure out how to make sure our information is as accurate as possible and that we can support their current management practices because, going back to this idea, that most of the time if you're a private landowner and you have habitat that's suitable for a threatened endangered species or it's species of longleaf pine for example, it's probably because you're doing all the right things and we want to make sure that you have the most support to continue doing the things you're doing. And we don't want to change it because they're there for a reason. Those species have, you know, gone there or stayed there because it makes sense for them and it's working. So, we've found this mutual relationship where these landowners are doing the exact correctly done management practices that the species need. So, this campaign allowed us to reach over 90,000 people in, along that historical longleaf range and we were able to connect 60 new private landowners who had longleaf on their property with folks at the Texas A&M Forest Service, within the Natural Resources Conservation Service, NRCS, and within the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for site visits to make sure that they had the financial assistance that they need, the technical guidance that they might be looking for, management practices, and that they had I mean honestly just connection and support and community because land ownership and land stewardship feels big sometimes and it feels like there are obviously a lot of very organic things going on that we can't always control and we can't always manage with limited resources. So, this created a community of folks that we just didn't even know existed. So, working with the Texas A&M Forest Service on that project was incredible and seeing the impacts that they could make on these landowner's lives by just alleviating some of the pressure of what finances look like when you're managing property that has longleaf on it, what that burden can feel like sometimes and knowing that some of that could be lifted so that they could keep doing the things that they're doing and preserve that that property the way that they have it was just it was a great experience being a part of that.
[30:03] – TPWD
So, on that note, the next section in here, the third section of four, is Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. This is probably, I mean, TPWD is, I think, something that most people in Texas are highly aware of. They manage a lot of different natural resources and wildlife initiatives in Texas, and I think people are used to seeing their logo. If you're a hunter, you're aware of TPWD, you know it. You know where your hunting license comes from. Fishermen same thing. So, it's just kind of you see them in a lot of different places and that to me that integration in the recreation part of wildlife management and in the land management part of wildlife management… it's an awesome place to be and that they can serve the people of Texas the way that they want to relate to the land, which I think is really important. So overall, their mission is to manage and conserve the natural and cultural resources of Texas and to provide hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation opportunities for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. And I think that this is highly, highly relevant because a lot of the statistics that we have at the Natural Resources Institute about, you know, simply just how people relate to the land, why people have land, what's most important to them, what makes the most sense as far as making sure that people have the right resources. One of the biggest reasons why people are still taking care of the land is for recreation. It's for reprieve, it's for... connecting with family, which is a shift from previous generations who were there because that was their livelihood. The majority of landowners depended on that land for their livelihood, and we have sort of shifted some away from that. We have shifted somewhat a somewhat a little bit away from that in that these younger generations relate to the land in a different way. Not comprehensively by any means, but the new generations to the land or the younger generations of multi-generational properties don't necessarily have their livelihood wrapped up in land and ranch ownership or management. They have moved away from the ranch, or maybe they never actually lived there, maybe their family didn't grow up there, and it's always kind of been the place of reprieve, the place you go for the holidays. It's the place you connect with family, and you manage it together.
So anyway, working with Texas Parks and Wildlife is a huge part of the Natural Resources Institute and they're very, they're highly connected to a lot of our partners in research as well. So, their two main areas of expertise are habitat and wildlife management. Just keep that in the back of your mind. So, they have a plethora of services and programs, obviously permits, if you've ever gotten your hunting and fishing license, that's where it comes from. The Private Lands Assistance and Technical Guidance Program, highly important. Stick that in your back pocket. So, the primary function of the Wildlife Division's Technical Guidance Program is to work with individual landowners or landowner cooperatives on a one-on-one basis, providing advice and information to land managers for the conservation and development of wildlife habitat and the proper management of the various wildlife populations which utilize that habitat.
This is where I would say the most value for our ranch comes in for TPWD. We have a wildlife biologist, Joyce Moore, who I have said, I don't know how many times, I want to be Joyce when I grow up. She has created an incredible relationship with our family and is somebody who I can call when I've noticed something. I am in the thick of a management decision because as I've spoken about a little bit, we have a lot of generations at the table and sometimes those decisions are not so cut and dry on how we manage our hunting lease, how we manage different species in competition, as far as the groceries on the ground, looking at the balance between wildlife and the cattle herd that we have on the property. So, Joyce makes sure that we are serving when we need to, we have the right resources that we need when it comes to hunting season, and that we're collecting the right data so that we have a library of data to look at over the years and compare to make sure that the management practices that we're implementing on our ranch are making sense. And for the most part, taking a step back and saying, you know, we're on a low fence ranch, and there's not a whole lot we can do to control the traveling and you know just the movement of the deer herd but we know that we can make smart decisions every season about how we define what a cull deer is for our property, how we age on the hoof, how we teach others to make smart and sound decisions when they're out and they're observing wildlife. So, those are some of the, I would say the biggest benefits is building that relationship with a biologist who can help clarify some of those decisions and really just removes the guesswork out of so much of what's going on in the wildlife management world.
So, they also have wildlife management on private lands, which goes into more of the, if you're familiar with the managed lands deer permitting system, so MLD. They have, I guess two different tiers of the MLD program and it's the harvest option, which is kind of where you start, that's how you begin with your wildlife management plan. If you decide to opt into that program, it's, you just get a different level of guidance and attention and they have the conservation option, which is, is what our ranch is on and it allows us, again, more access more one-on-one with those biologists who are there who have done several site visits and they know exactly what we're looking at as far as the landscape and the wildlife that's there.
They also have and lead the Ag Property Tax Conversion for Wildlife Management Program. Again, going back to this wildlife tax valuation and needing the documentation and the qualifications for that, I'm gonna have Dr. Jim Cathey kinda talk to you guys a little bit in a minute here about wildlife tax valuation because he is, I would say, one of the experts in the state on this. He's written a lot of literature on describing what this process looks like. And it's really when you're faced with a decision on the tax valuation for your property, if you do not have a traditional ag valuation, you have another option to go 1-d-1 wildlife tax valuation. It's an incredible option if you're really considering it and you need some other options on the table. So, I'm gonna have Dr. Cathey talk to you a little bit about this.
The last item under the TPWD section is game management in Texas. So, programs and resources for game species management in Texas, including outside of deer, which everybody kind of thinks about, but turkey, doves, pronghorn, your big game animals, which now include javelina I have learned in the state of Texas. And then, you know, of course, any of those other species that are out there that are considered game species. Again, the most important part of this outside of the program, is that you have a tool right here in this lesson to figure out who your wildlife biologist is, who's your human that you can call, whether it's a technical biologist or maybe somebody who specializes in different types of natural resources. You can search by county, search by region, or just head to their website. I did this and I've done it a couple of times for different people. You just head to their search by county page, find where you're located, and you get, again, a populated list of people, phone numbers, addresses, where their office is located so that you know exactly who you can call and who's responsible for your piece of Texas.
[38:22] – NRCS
So, the last section on here is the Natural Resources Conservation Service. So, the NRCS says, “We deliver conservation solutions so agricultural producers can protect natural resources and feed a growing world.” So, their areas of expertise are soils and reducing erosion, water conservation, wildlife habitat management, and then of course their services and programs. This entity is a little bit different in the way that they interact with and support landowners and land stewards. So, they lead the Farm Bill Program, which I think most of you are probably aware of. They work with the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP, which provides financial and technical assistance to agricultural producers. We have applied for and received thousands of dollars over the years from EQIP to be able to support some of those water-related and definitely habitat-related management practices that we have.
This is everything from clearing brush, specifically for us, clearing cedar and mesquite, taking care of those riparian areas, even doing smaller things like taking unbranched like willow poles to help reduce erosion. Those are all very small technical management practices that make really huge impacts down the road that you can start implementing and working on today and get financial assistance to help pay for the time, the equipment, and anything that you need to invest into some of those management practices. There is money on the table every year for landowners who are looking for that financial assistance, and you quite literally just need to pick up the phone, talk to the people who are responsible for your county, find your human, and talk to them a little bit about when the timeframe is to apply, and they will support you as you're building that application. They'll review it for you before it's submitted.
And these people are local, they're right there in the county. We work with the Gillespie County office in Fredericksburg and have a couple of people in that NRCS office who we have developed really great relationships with. So, you're not working with somebody who is unreachable or someone who sits in the Capitol at Austin. You're working with people who live right where your property is, which I think is a huge benefit for community building and building those relationships with your contacts.
They also have the Conservation Stewardship Program, which we refer to it as a CSP, which helps ag producers really maintain and improve their existing conservation systems and then adopt maybe some of those additional conservation activities to address priorities and to the can help kind of give insight on that and then they can make sure that those ag producers are then supported financially for some of those efforts. They also help with easements, so they have the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program and then they have the Healthy Forest Reserve Program which is for those people who are interested in conservation easements and easement programs. They have financial assistance, obviously, which are just through NRCS and maybe not through some of these other programs, depending on what your priorities are, and they can help you kind of figure that out and sort through it. They have the Conservation Technical Assistance Program, the CTA, which provides the nation's farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners with knowledge and tools that they need to conserve, maintain, and restore natural resources.
The last two are more landscape - so, landscape conservation and then landscape planning, which obviously are very important, but at the end of the day, let's say you've been doing this for however many years, it's never wasted time to call, to get connected, to do a site visit, to just see what kind of insight they have. You don't know what you don't know. And sometimes they know where they can send you and what resources are that exist to help support the things that you're already doing. So again, contacting your district conservationist, they have service center locators which you can go to a map straight from this lesson here or you can go straight to the NRCS website to just kind of peruse, see what they do, see what other programs are available and how that funding works for you. We went through NRCS and that was probably one of the, I would say from an economic bottom line, one of the best decisions that we could have made on the ranch is just getting in touch with them and now I could email or call them any time I needed to and they know our property, they know our history, they know what our priorities are and they know what we're doing, know kind of what we've tried in the past and what makes the most sense. So, they have been able to help us again with several thousand dollars in just financial support on some of those things that we were going to do anyway, the things that make sense for our property, the land management, and the habitat that we have there.
[43:29]
So, thanks for listening to this. I hope that some of this was helpful. Again, this is something that you can go through on your own time. It's sort of like a field guide, this thing that we've built, “How to Find a Natural Resource Professional in Texas”. As you're starting out the new year, as you're thinking about how to do better with less, how to release, some of that pressure off of yourself as a land steward, as a landowner, how to make it so that you don't feel like you have to make all the decisions and that you have to make all the right decisions, you have a network of people whose sole purpose, their job is to make sure that they're supporting you and they're connecting you with the resources that can make a profound difference on your management decisions, your economic bottom line, the way that you approach decision-making and the resources that you use.
Take a few minutes. Today, tomorrow, next week, whenever it works for you, to find your people, find those humans in each of these sections, whether it's the AgriLife Extension Service, the Forest Service, Texas Parks and Wildlife, or NRCS, find the people who are most relevant to the challenges that you have right now, create that relationship so that you can come back to it and you can connect your family to them, or the people who are in your network to make sure that you're making those really sound science-based conservation-forward decisions for your property.
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[45:16] – Interview with Dr. Jim Cathey on 1-d-1 Wildlife Tax Valuation
BW: So, I have the infamous Dr. Jim Cathey. Who has been so generous with his time to join us for the podcast. Cause I wanted to kind of pick his brain a little bit on some of those options that we talked about as you’re laying out what’s on the table for 2024. That being, a possibility of looking into 1-d-1 wildlife tax valuation, and really centering a lot of your conservation-minded planning and maybe just some stewardship planning on the idea of wildlife management. So, welcome to the podcast, Dr. Jim Cathey.
JC: Hey, everybody. You know, infamous, I think there’s some people that’ll agree with you on that.
BW: [laughs] So, I have had the absolute honor of working with Dr. Cathey for six years?
JC: I think so, right.
BW: And he somehow allowed me to join the Institute. It was just an amazing opportunity, especially, I remember the first time meeting him, we talked about some of the challenges that were going on with the Institute and I was fangirling in a lot of different ways and trying to be professional at the same time. But you guys know me by now, I was very passionate about how we can share the science and the research coming from the Institute and Dr. Cathey said, “You know what, I’m gonna give you a chance here.” So, now we’ve been working together for about six years and I’m so happy to have him here to talk a little bit about this topic with you.
JC: But actually, we went after Brittany and it was one of those things where we wanted to get her quickly before someone else snatched her up.
BW: Okay. Now he’s being super nice. So, we’re gonna dive in and talk a little bit about wildlife tax valuation. And you guys remember there is a link down in the show notes for this guide for you called Wildlife Management as Agricultural Use for Property Tax Valuation in Texas. It’s a mouthful, but it’s totally worth it. And you can just click on that link, click “start course”, and really all it does is kind of allow you to kind of explore the information that’s in there at your own pace, so you get to know a little bit about the history and importance of open space lands just in general, the requirements for wildlife appraisal, what that application actually looks like, wildlife management practices, which you know are near and dear to my heart, habitat and erosion control practices, predator control, supplemental water and food practices, and then lastly providing shelter. So, Jim, can you talk a little bit about how you kind of enter in the conversation with people when they’re approaching you about 1-d-1, they’re trying to figure out what it is and why it’s important to them?
JC: Right, so, you know, sometimes it’s that first contact that you get together with, whether that’s Parks and Wildlife, the Forest Service, or AgriLife Extension, but that’s really a good place to begin to gather all your information. And sometimes with the new landowners, it’s on into the conversation that they find out that tax valuation for wildlife is even an option. And even though Texas is pretty cool, right? From the… the Texas piney woods over in East Texas where we get a lot of rainfall to the Chihuahuan Desert out in West Texas where we pray for rain all the time. It’s amazing the different types of plants and animals and species that we have in that way, across that way. And what we can do as managers to really steward that land. And so what’s cool about our new landowners is they hunger for information. They want that information, and now they have the opportunity to put that into play. Probably because they had a job in another area and have since retired or inherited land. Those are some of the folks that are really exciting to work with cause they make things happen.
BW: Mhmm. I totally agree. Can you describe, a little bit, I guess the difference between what 1-d-1 is, and what the traditional ag valuation or 1-d is for our listeners?
JC: Right, so whenever we say those terms, we’re referring to a section in the state’s constitution. And so for 1-d, that’s a person who primarily makes their living from the livestock or whatever operations they have on the property. Whereas 1-d-1, you may be some other type of professional, yet, you want to have your property, you may wanna have livestock on your property, and it’s part of what you do. So for wildlife, it also fits under the section of 1-d-1 agriculture, but that wasn’t the case prior to 1995. And whenever I came into Parks and Wildlife in about 1997, those were some of the things that were new to me at that time, but since then we’ve been able to work with a lot of different people, we’ve created a ton of resources for wildlife management. We’ve even incorporated them all into this lesson that Brittany was referring to.
BW: Okay, so who do you think would be the ideal landowner or land steward to start looking into 1-d-1 as an option for them?
JC: Hm. The ideal person. Really it comes down to an individual, what makes sense for them. The majority, I would say, of folks that are doing management for livestock or wildlife are falling into the 1-d-1 category. So the ideal person is one that has, their antennae are up. They’re gathering ideas, they’re cultivating those all into one location and then they make the decision. Does it make sense for me, monetarily, to be in 1-d-1 for livestock, or is this a passion area of mine, for instance, for wildlife. And you can also profit in that area as well. You can also do 1-d-1 for wildlife and profit from… profit from things like leasing land or even wildlife viewing.
So, I was thinking more about that ideal landowner. And remember, that’s the person, they have their materials gathered up, and yet they’re on the fence. They’re just about to do it but they’re not quite ready to pull the trigger on this. And so, sometimes I wonder about what are the barriers? And one barrier may be what are the steps? How do I move to get a change in agricultural use document? How do I work with someone at Parks and Wildlife or some other group to develop a written wildlife management plan? Holy cow – this thing is still complicated, and I even have all the information. So, I have some choices to make at that point. Do I try to write this wildlife management plan myself? Do I work with Parks and Wildlife, who will do this, by the way, for free? That’s part of their technical guidance. Or do I use a consultant that can really hold my hand and I give them information, they do the plan, I implement the plan, and away we go? So, those are some decision points based on that person’s knowledge about wildlife management and what they wanna do. And so, one of the reasons we developed these Private Land Stewardship Academies, or “lessons”, was to not only put those pieces of information in one place, so now you don’t have to chase that down, just go through the lesson, follow the process, and you’ll have all the documents ready at your fingertips to download. But I also wanted everybody to have an educational journey. I’m the type of person that doesn’t learn from point A, B, C, D, don’t skip E, or whatever. I wanna go where I wanna go when I’m learning. So, in this lesson, you’re not confined by the 1, 2, 3s in there, the different topics in this lesson. You can jump out to a video to see what’s being done in management. How do you do this thing called prescribed burning, how do you count quail? You may jump out to a pdf document that provides you the different options that you can manage for on your land.
Most of the people might pick two or three different wildlife species to manage for, and then that opens the gate for, okay, well what do I need to do for those 1, 2, 3 species? Often, I like to manage for an animal that’s a generalist, because if you manage for an animal that’s a generalist, you’re probably helping out tons of other animals that will use some component of that management practice. They’ll benefit from that activity of a, of a generalist. And so, you know, if I’m the person and I’m making this decision. For me, I’m going to need some help to write this wildlife management plan. So I’m gonna reach out to Parks and Wildlife first, to my district biologist out there. And we know how to get to them quickly. I’m gonna count on them to help me through the process, maybe even point me towards the chief appraiser and go have a conversation with that person to really understand, “Is this what I wanna do? Yes, it is.” And so, once you pull the trigger on that, and you have a written wildlife management plan, and you have a change of use, agricultural use document that you submit to the chief appraiser, then you set up your process. And, for me, everything works by the calendar. If it’s not on the calendar, it was really just a good intention. And so, I think that I would plan out from that point, I’ve chosen my species, two or three different species, I’m not gonna make this crazy difficult as I step into this. But then I want to understand what are the practices that I might do on my property? So, I think Brittany mentioned habitat, erosion, and predator control, but there’s also supplemental water, food, and shelter that one could do. And then one that I really like, cause it’s just being still in the woods, is creating a census count. And so, part of my old job with Parks and Wildlife was sitting at the base of a tree counting squirrels down on Catfish Creek, and it was great to gather that information for science’s sake and management’s sake. But the things that you hear, things that you see, that’s just special and time well-spent outdoors. So, among those different practices that I mentioned, there’s a lot of different activities, and so you have your choice as a land manager. And if you think back on what you’re already doing, you’ll see that they fit into some different cubby-holes that are required for doing atleast three of seven of those practices that we mentioned.
It may be that you’re riding your property, and you’re collecting information about the number of bucks, does, and fawns that you see, and that’s called “herd composition”. Or you may be doing spotlight surveys to count the number of deer. And how many of you already have cameras that you already have up on your property to see the wildlife that comes to a particular location? All that helps creating trend information about the population of deer. One of the things that people often gravitate towards is supplemental feeding. Whatever it is, we want to help wildlife, that means we must feed them! And so, that’s not just having a feeder like a spin cast corn feeder, it really needs something like a complete ration that may be in a pelletized form if you’re doing it out of a bag, or may be that you’ve created a food plot on your property or many different food plots on your property. Those are the things that you would might do as a wildlife manager that would count for some of these aspects of managing the habitat. The other thing that, that Brittany asked about the ideal landowner. That person that came to mind was one of the new landowners that may not have livestock. It’s crazy to think, for me, that some two or three generations of Texans haven’t dealt with livestock. And so in that case, that person, the decision becomes easier, I wanna do wildlife. It doesn’t ever mean that you’re locked into that. If I thought that I wanted to go back and do livestock I could certainly do so. But also, you know, there are some folks out there that are gonna retain livestock, and I’m glad they do, I love a ribeye steak. But in that case, the livestock are used to manipulate the habitat, to enhance the habitat of wildlife. That’s their primary goal of doing the wildlife tax valuation.
[12:38]
BW: I really like how you mention the differences in landowner goals. We’re all land stewards in some way, however we connect to the land, but sometimes it looks different. Sometimes we have been a part of a property that raises livestock, and sometimes we’re not. There has to be other options on the table for you when you’re considering conservation and what stewardship looks like comprehensively. I will vouch for what Dr. Cathey described as his squiggle brain kind of experiencing things in a non-linear format. He’s taught me a whole lot about how to experience information, science, and research in a way that helps you learn by being hands on by not letting what’s on the screen dictate the way that you take in that information, but by doing it through experiences. Which is part of the reason why the two lessons that we’ve been talking about on this podcast episode have been so foundational for some of the changes that we’ve made on my property’s ranch out in the Hill Country. Because they helped give me a guide, but at the end of the day, I probably wouldn’t have been able to pull off some of this the way that it’s organized in this lesson, cause there are other factors involved. We’re a multi-generational property, we have a lot of thoughts and ideas. We can all come to the table and agree that conservation is of utmost importance to us, but conservation looks different across different generations. So, sometimes we kind of had to jump from activity to activity to figure out what the best fit was for us, and to figure out how we wanted to continue to take care of the land and the wildlife that was there.
[14:19]
JC: Hey Brittany, we’ve been talking about the ideal landowner. We didn’t talk about the family situation like you have, I think that’d be important whenever you start that conversation with your family to recognize that you’re gonna have people that have, that absorb information in different ways, that think about things in a different way. And so expect, perhaps, a little conflict and be ready to kind of navigate through that space. I guess regarding conflict there was something that came up in work many years ago and I was ready to stamp it out. And my… my mentor at the time said “Well, wait a minute. Conflict’s not all bad. Conflict can also lead to growth.” And so, maybe just set the stage in your family’s discussion about this, and let them recognize that, yep, we’re gonna have some issues that we don’t agree upon, but in the end we need to come to some consensus to move forward, and in this case it might be the consideration of doing a 1-d-1 tax valuation for wildlife or livestock or some other situation.
BW: Yeah, I completely agree. Going back to the idea of meeting at the table, maybe you have different ideas or different understandings, or even different entrances into this idea of conservation and land stewardship. And for our family, very personally, you know we’ve had generations of very livestock and cattle-first-minded land stewardship ideas. And when you look at the idea of starting with soil first, and look at the cascade of stewardship decisions that happen from that, but also the benefits that happen with starting with the soil. Knowing that it may be a more long-term investment on what those management practices look like. And your time allocation may look different. But at the end of the day, it’s gonna pay off ten-fold compared to just managing one single aspect of your property at a time. That was a big eye-opener, I think for our property in the Hill Country, and you know, it’s always a priority for us to think about water conservation, to think about drought, to think about all the other variables that come into play for that specific ecoregion. But we all were able to agree that the soil needed to come first. So, that was kind of a helpful conversation for us and I hope that was helpful for those of you who are coming from either a multi-generational ranch or maybe a ranch that has been cattle or livestock first in the past for many years. And maybe some of you who have different family members who are coming into this from different angles, and the value of that at the end of the day, again, is that you’re still coming to the table. You still want to have those conversations and there’s still progress to be made.
JC: Yeah, and on the landscape, I’m so glad you mentioned soils. I was going to mention that as well. Because I can also hear our director, Dr. Roel Lopez, saying that everything starts with a good map, right? And in this case, the soils tell you where your management activities are best invested.
[1:00:01]
BW: On the note of talking about good maps, I did mention that Generation Next course that I took that was just absolutely profound and eye-opening to the different people that you can lean on and their role is to support you. They’re there for you to call on. And part of the outcome of that is that you do get that sort of business and ranch management plan that comes from that course. A part of that management plan is a soil map, so you know what’s out there, you know what’s under your boots when you’re out there. And sometimes it’s hard to know how to manage things without knowing what makes up the ground underneath you.
JC: Yeah, and related to that map we can even geo-reference some of the photographs on our maps now, and there’s a landscape shot and there’s one that’s straight down, but one of the things that I like about that is it… it helps with out memories. We may forget about what that property looked like. When you mention progress, those photos will help you out as far as what we did back then, how it affected the look now. So really like the idea of photo points. And then, I would keep records. You know, not only for yourself and working with your family in this area of wildlife valuation, but sometimes the chief appraiser will require an annual update, a report on what you did as well. And so there are several things that go into there. The number of animals that you counted, the amount of feed that you put out, so there are several different aspects, and we have some resources for you on that of how to create a fantastic report for your chief appraiser. So, I would just make that so easy for my family, for the chief appraiser to see the good work being done.
BW: Mhmm. Thankfully, there’s, no matter what entity you go with, whether it’s AgriLife Extension, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, NRCS, or the Forest Service, there’s several different opportunities and promptings for you so you don’t have to remember all the things, all your deadlines. They’re there to work with you and help support you through that process so that you can have a comprehensive plan and a comprehensive reporting period. And you can think of that, to Dr. Cathey’s point, as a moment of reflection. Look how far we’ve come over the last couple of years, even. Look at all of these small changes that we’ve made, and the really big differences and impacts that they’ve made for stewarding the land. And looking at your goals and how they’ve kind of cascaded over time.
[1:04:18]
JC: Hey, speaking of big impacts I’m reminded back to my mentor, there in Eastern Texas as a biologist was Carl Frentress… Carl Frentress and Kay Fleming and now that I've named some names I’m gonna to be in trouble. But they were the leaders within Parks and Wildlife and they were the leaders with Clyde Alexander who was a state rep at that time. But other conservation heroes of mine like David Langford - David was instrumental in moving this ahead. Kirby Brown, and man I really should never have named any names because there's some other fantastic, along with support from some of the legislators back then like Gib Lewis and Susan Combs was our comptroller at that time. Those conservation giants put this into play and began this idea in about 1990. So here we are some years later and I think that's about six million acres of Texas that are now under a wildlife management plan. And I bet that doesn't count all of those that may be under some forestry plan or conservation plan that we might see through Natural Resource Conservation Service. So, man, I'm grateful for those conservation heroes and… from times past putting this into play.
BW: Yeah, I definitely agree. Well thank you for allowing me to snag you in the hallway and bring you in here to talk a little bit about wildlife tax valuation to share some of your expertise and really to share some of the experiences that you have that I think some of our land stewards can connect to.
JC: Well, listen, I really appreciate the opportunity to come and be part of the Land Steward podcast. I know this is something that we've wanted to do for a long time. Congratulations to everybody to put this on and in front of the scenes behind the scenes to make this go. What an important tool it is to share ideas about conservation and what we can do for wildlife and wild places across Texas. Thanks again, Brittany.
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[1:06:09]
Thank you again for listening to this. Click on that link. I'm excited to connect with you guys for the next episode. I have a couple of ideas in my mind. One of them may be that we need to talk about wild pig management and wild pig control. Let me know what you think about that because I have somebody who you guys are going to absolutely love listening to, who has a really diverse background and who is going to be in the next episode, technically down the hall from me, but his name is Jay Long and he is our in-house kind of wild pig expert and some of you might have met him if you've ever been to a workshop before, but please join us again for episode 5. I'm thinking about bringing him on and it's gonna be really exciting obviously. So, I'm signing off for now, you have your homework cut out for you and we will talk soon.
[Outro music]
[1:07:26] - Blooper
BW: Oh my gosh, I’m sorry Abigail.
JC: [laughs] No she’s not, she did that on purpose.
BW: [laughs]