This Is For The Birds!

Before we bought our property I was reading some homesteading articles online, mostly about raising animals, living on/off the grid, and sustainability, however one particular article caught my attention.  Sheri Dixon's two-part article on Earth Stewardship (101 and 102) explains how she and her family moved out to the country and decided to keep a certain section of her property as natural as possible.  She contacted the Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD) to schedule a visit from her local biologist to come out and help evaluate the property.  The visit was a free service offered by TPWD.  I remember thinking how neat that would be to have a wildlife habitat on our own property.

After finally buying our property, her article came to mind again and decided I wanted to delve further into this.  I thought I had bookmarked the article for future reference, I was sure of it.  Dang it! I hate it when I'm trying to find something and suddenly it's nowhere to be found, my bookmarks, my keys, my kids...  Anyway, I started combing through various homesteading sites for articles and Googling various key words, just hoping to run across that article once again.

I started researching information on TPWD's website for such information and actually found it.  The information, not Sheri's article.  Stay with me.  Turns out that TPWD offer the service of helping you turn your Ag valuation from livestock to wildlife (see links below).  I've learned that Ag valuation is the term most commonly, and mistakenly, known as "Ag exempt".  It's not an exemption, it's still being taxed but just at a different rate.  We were lucky, the property we purchased already has an Ag valuation for cattle, but since the property was sold (to us) we would have to then re-apply in order to keep the Ag valuation.  The problem there is that though we want some animals, we are not prepared to maintain the county's required number of heads of cattle, or goats, or whatever.

Enter the Wildlife Management option.  I won't go into the history or details on this, there's plenty of information on that here:

Agricultural Tax Appraisal Based on Wildlife Management

So, about a month ago I was messing with my email and lo-and-behold...I stumbled onto the article again.  After re-reading it, I called and contacted our local TPWD biologist to schedule a visit from him.   A couple of weeks ago, I met Derrick out at the property to get an idea of what all it would take.  I was sure we could meet the required 3 out of 7 management practices, perhaps most all of them as well.  After a few hours of discussion, we formulated a plan, he was going to put some information together for me and help with the proposal to pass on to our county appraiser.

There are other programs that offer financial assistance as well as information to aid in land stewardship and wildlife habitat from state (TPWD) and federal level (USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Services).  You just have to look for 'em...

Texas Parks and Wildlife

• Private Lands and Habitat Program.
• Land Incentive Programs
• Locate a biologist
• Farm Bill Programs
• Wildlife Management on Private Lands

USDA, NRCS

•  Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP)

Hopefully we'll find out more information within the next few weeks and will report back.