Texas Wildlife - Whitetails Managing Around Drought - November 2023

MAGAZINE OF THE TEXAS WILDLIFE ASSOCIATION

NOVEMBER 2023

Whitetails

Managing Around Drought

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TEXAS WILDLIFE

CEO COMMENTS JUSTIN DREIBELBIS

Texas Wildlife Association Mission Statement Serving Texas wildlife and its habitat, while protecting property rights, hunting heritage, and the conservation efforts of those who value and steward wildlife resources.

A

fter a long, hot, dry summer, I couldn’t be more excited that November is finally here. The general white-tailed deer season began November 4 and hundreds of thousands of Texas deer hunters flooded rural communities around the state, providing them with the lifeblood they depend on each year.

I don’t need to tell most TWA members that hunting is a big business in Texas and the numbers prove it. A recent Texas A&M study revealed that Texas hunters and landowners spend $4.3 billion per year on the many things related to white-tailed deer hunting. These expenditures could be a lease fee, feed bill, or hunting equipment. They might also be travel expenses on the way to the hunt like food, gas, or motel.

During my time with TPWD, I had the good fortune to help organize a TV special on this opening day phenomenon in Goldthwaite. Drive through Goldthwaite during hunting season and you can’t miss the giant Welcome Hunters banner they proudly drape across Main street.

I love these outward displays of how a community values hunters and hunting. When we began making the rounds to local businesses about 10:00 on opening morning, it was clear why. We started at the local Mexican food restaurant which, by the time we left, was full of hunters telling stories about their morning hunt. From there we moved down the road to a local deer processor who was already swamped with happy customers.

From there, we moved to the feed store which also had a parking lot full of out-of-town hunters. Then it was down to the hardware store on the square to check on the local deer contest which had already received multiple entries that morning. Finally, we headed across the street to the downtown community pavilion where hundreds of people had gathered for food and fellowship at the Annual Hunters Appreciation Chili Lunch.

I often think back to the energy we felt in Goldthwaite that opening morning and am encouraged to know that something similar is taking place in hundreds of small Texas towns each season. Hunting is part of our Texas culture, it drives our rural economies, and is an important way for friends and families to spend time together outdoors.

This is why TWA was founded. It’s why we work so hard to introduce new hunters through the Texas Youth Hunting Program and the Adult Learn to Hunt Program. It’s why we work hard to defend landowner and hunter rights at the Texas Capitol and why we take disease threats like CWD so seriously. Hunting is important to Texas and it’s worth fighting for.

As you prepare to get out in the field this season, don’t forget to vote in the November 7th election. There will be a number of important propositions on the ballot, and we encourage all TWA members to vote YES on Prop 1 and 14.

Prop 1 is the Right to Farm and will provide important protections for Texas farmers, ranchers, and wildlife managers. Prop 14 is the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund that will provide a billion dollars for state park acquisition and improvement. Both are good for a growing Texas.

Here’s to a safe and successful hunting season for you and your family. Thanks for being a TWA member!

Texas Wildlife Association

TEXAS WILDLIFE is published monthly by the Texas Wildlife Association, 6644 FM 1102, New Braunfels, TX 78132. E-mail address: twa@texas-wildlife.org. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Texas Wildlife Association, 6644 FM 1102, New Braunfels, TX 78132. The Texas Wildlife Association (TWA) was organized in 1985 for the purpose of serving as an advocate for the benefit of wildlife and for the rights of wildlife managers, landowners and hunters in educational, scientific, political, regulatory and legislative arenas. TEXAS WILDLIFE is the official TWA publication and has widespread circulation throughout Texas and the United States. All rights reserved. No parts of these magazines may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express written permission from the publisher. Copyrighted 2023 Texas Wildlife Association. Views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the Texas Wildlife Association. Similarities between the name Texas Wildlife Association and those of advertisers or state agencies are coincidental, and do not indicate mutual affiliation, unless clearly noted. TWA reserves the right to refuse advertising.

4 TEXAS WILDLIFE

NOVEMBER 2023

6644 FM 1102 New Braunfels, TX 78132 www.texas-wildlife.org (210) 826-2904 FAX (210) 826-4933 (800) 839-9453 (TEX-WILD)

Texas Wildlife MAGAZINE OF THE TEXAS WILDLIFE ASSOCIATION

NOVEMBER VOLUME 39 H NUMBER 7 H 2023

8 White-tailed Deer

30 Nuggets of Gold

Managing Around Drought

The Field Notes of A. S. Jackson

by NATE SKINNER

by RICKY LINEX

38 Hill Country Silver

18 Lessons From Leopold The Crop of Wisdom

The Charismatic Gray Fox

by JOSEPH RICHARDS

by STEVE NELLE

42 Food Choice Plays Key Role in

20 Guns & Hunting Whitetails in Retro

Attracting Migratory Ducks

by LARRY WEISHUHN

by MIKE PORTER

24 TAMU News

Treating Your Pond vs. Treating Your Pasture

by BRITTANY CHESSER and TODD SINK

44 Better Together

by LORIE A. WOODWARD

48 Texas Right to Farm Statute

26 Borderlands News

by TIFFANY DOWELL LASHMET, J.D.

Anthropogenic Effects on Scaled Quail Habitat Selection

54 Outdoor Traditions

Thanking My Lucky Stars

by BROOKE BOWMAN and RYAN LUNA

by SALLIE LEWIS SCHNEIDER

Photo by Nate Skinner

Magazine Staff

MAGAZINE OF THE TEXAS WILDLIFE ASSOCIATION

NOVEMBER 2023

Hundreds of thousands of hunters will hit the woods this month in pursuit of whitetailed deer, easily the most popular Texas game animal. Thanks to rains early in the growing season, deer numbers are higher this year. However, devastating drought has taken its toll and fawn recruitment has been less than average the past few years. That will result in several years of fewer age-class bucks, as Nate Skinner explains in his article beginning on page 8.

MAGAZINE CORPS Justin Dreibelbis, Executive Editor David Brimager, Managing Editor Burt Rutherford, Consulting Publications Coordinator/Editor Lorie A. Woodward, Special Projects Editor

On the Cover

Cover photo by Nate Skinner Whitetails

Managing Around Drought

Publication Printers Corp., Printing, Denver, CO

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TEXAS WILDLIFE

MEETINGS AND EVENTS

FOR INFORMATION ON HUNTING SEASONS, call the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department at (800) 792-1112, consult the 2022-2023 Texas Parks and Wildlife Outdoor Annual, or visit the TPWD website at tpwd.state.tx.us.

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

NOVEMBER 8 Wild at Work program; The Wild Harvest Initiative featuring Shane Mahoney with Conservation Visions Inc. For information, contact Jared Schlottman at jschlottman@texas-wildlife.org.

DECEMBER 11 7th Annual Houston Clay Shoot, Greater Houston Gun Club.

Contact Kristin Parma at kparma@texas-wildlife.org for more information.

NOVEMBER 11 Family Expeditions – Birding 101 in Fort Bend County. Contact Chad Timmons at ctimmons@texas-wildlife.org for more information.

NOVEMBER 16 Student Land, Water & Wildlife Expedition, Northlake, Texas.

Contact Gene Cooper at gcooper@texas-wildlife.org for more information.

DECEMBER 13 Wild at Work program; Rx Fire as a Land Management Tool featuring Thomas Janke with Pheasants Forever/Quail Forever. For information, contact Jared Schlottman at jschlottman@texas-wildlife.org.

NOVEMBER 30 Student Land, Water & Wildlife Expedition, Boerne, Texas.

Contact Gene Cooper at gcooper@texas-wildlife.org for more information.

TEXAS WILDLIFE

C O N S E R VAT I O N L E G A C Y A D U LT P R O G R A M M I N G

TEXAS WILDLIFE ASSOCIATION OFFERS FREE LUNCHTIME WEBINARS Would you like to spend your lunch break learning about wildlife management? Join us for our FREE monthly program, “Wild at Work: A Stewardship Series.”

Wild at Work’s are one-hour long webinars scheduled from noon to 1 pm on Wednesdays to give working people a chance to virtually attend. These webinars will cover a variety of topics concerning everything from private land stewardship to Texas wildlife management to natural resource policy updates. Topics planned for the remainder

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of this year include conservation easements and mitigation banking, North American model of wildlife management, and natural resource legislation updates.

Date and Time: Second Wednesday of every month | noon – 1 PM with time for live Q&A Who: Variety of speakers from Wildlife Biologists to Natural Resource Lobbyists Cost: Completely FREE (Donations are helpful) Contact Jared Schlottman at jschlottman@texas-wildlife.org or 512-350-5563 for more information

NOVEMBER 2023

or visit https://www.texas-wildlife.org/waw/.

Details on future webinar dates/ topics will be forthcoming.

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Photo by Nate Skinner

W H I T E -TA I L E D D E E R : M A N AG I N G A R O U N D D R O U G H T

Of the many displays of incredible colors that hunters witness, sunrises and sunsets can be the most awe-inspiring. Add a big buck to the picture and it gets even better.

8 TEXAS WILDLIFE

NOVEMBER 2023

WHITE-TAILED DEER Managing Around Drought Article by NATE SKINNER

I

f Shakespeare were still around and among the cadre of Texas deer hunters, he might modify one of his famous plays and rename it “A Mid-Summer Night’s Deer Dream.”

That’s because, in spite of late summer and fall drought and scorching temperatures, mid-summer rains set the stage for a much better deer season than last year.

Indeed, the Texas landscape is always faced with drought, it seems. These dry periods can vary by region, length, and severity, and the only true constant is that they are inevitable.

Droughts come, droughts go, and then they come back.

However, the Lone Star State has been experiencing a drought of historic proportions lately. As of this writing, much of the state was dangerously dry, and unless fall rains occurred, it’s likely

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W H I T E -TA I L E D D E E R

that not much has changed. This creates concerns across the board for a variety of wildlife, and for many Texans, white-tailed deer is at the top of that list.

Deer hunters as well as ranch and wildlife managers can’t help but wonder what effect this seemingly never-ending drought will have on whitetails this season, as well as deer seasons to come.

Photo by Russell A. Graves

DEER NUMBERS LOOK BETTER The good news is that deer populations as a whole are in much better shape than they were at this time last season. Does that mean they have recovered from the current drought? It is too early to tell. In fact, that may not even be a valid question as we are almost always either in the middle of a dry period or on our way toward the next drought.

The truth is, white-tailed deer are highly adaptive and resilient creatures. They respond to the hand that Mother Nature deals them and they take advantage of every positive variable thrown

their way. This is especially true when good conditions prevail at the right time of year, and this season provides living proof of just that.

According to the TPWD White-tailed Deer Program Leader Alan Cain, timely rains earlier in the year made a significant difference in what hunters should encounter this fall and winter.

“Bucks across the state have made tremendous gains in terms of antler quality compared to last season,” Cain said. “Excellent range conditions prevailed during the late winter and spring months as a result of timely rainfall. Even though we were plagued by drought conditions throughout the summer months, good range conditions carried into early to mid-July, and bucks were able to take advantage of it when it mattered the most.”

This deer season reveals a night and day difference from last year. Cain said that big game harvests were down about 17 percent statewide in 2022, compared with 2021, which equates to a noteworthy difference in the number of deer taken by hunters.

This year’s fawn crop gives hope for the future. But was this year an anomaly? Only time will tell if the horrific heat and drought that has devastated much of Texas will continue.

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Photo by Larry Ditto

W H I T E -TA I L E D D E E R

With drought in full control over much of the deer habitat in the state, consistent water sources are vital.

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Photo by Dave Richards

W H I T E -TA I L E D D E E R

Photo by Nate Skinner

Because of declines in fawn recruitment the past few years, there will be holes in some age classes of bucks in years ahead, something for hunters and wildlife managers to take into careful consideration.

Devastating drought the past few years significantly reduced fawn recruitment, resulting in fewer younger deer.

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NOVEMBER 2023

“Many folks decided to let bucks walk last year because their antler quality had decreased due to poor range conditions,” Cain said. “Some hunters also had a hard time getting in front of deer last fall, because rainfall at the beginning of the season greened up vegetation and allowed bucks to avoid feeders. These two factors provided a large amount of deer with the opportunity to recover and grow between last season and this season, and hunters are now able to reap the benefits of that.”

In addition to improved antler quality, fawn crops also significantly improved compared with last year. This is also due to timely rainfall that provided good range conditions through the early to mid-summer months. Many ranch managers and hunters across the state have reported seeing does with twins, as well as a decent number of fawns across the landscape in general.

W H I T E -TA I L E D D E E R

MANAGE DOE HARVEST CAREFULLY “With there being some gaps in the younger age classes of deer across the state for the most part, harvesting less does in

Photo by Nate Skinner

From 2015 to 2017, statewide fawn crops were at about 42 percent. Therefore, there is an abundance of deer in the sixto eight-year-old range. In 2018, statewide fawn crops were about 33 percent. In 2019, they increased to about 42 percent, dropped in 2021 to 38 percent and then fell even lower in 2022 to 28 percent.

With older age classes of whitetails seemingly thriving this season, Cain said that folks should be mindful of what their numbers of younger deer look like.

“Fawn crops were definitely down the previous two years, so there are going to be fewer deer within the younger age classes this season,” Cain said. “Hunters and wildlife managers that tend to cull bucks from the herd based on certain antler characteristics may want to be more lenient with younger bucks this season and allow them to grow and mature for another year.”

Harvesting too many young deer will create an increased gap in those age classes, which will result in fewer mature bucks in future seasons. “This is definitely a season in which hunters should focus on harvesting mature bucks.”

What’s more, the gap in younger ageclass deer created by poor fawn crops in previous years is not something that just goes away.

“Most hunters understand that they won’t encounter many yearlings this year because last year’s fawn crops were extremely low,” said TPWD biologist Blaise Korzekwa, “However, several years from now, good range conditions could prevail, and motivate folks to think that they should be seeing a lot of mature bucks. Unfortunately, once a gap in age classes is created, it never goes away”.

In four to five years, there will be a shortage in five- to six-year-old deer due to the poor fawn crops that occurred last season, he said. “That is one of the effects of a drought that is experienced long term, which is why it is crucial for hunters to be mindful of what they are harvesting when a gap in age classes exists.”

It’s a tough decision, but it’s a good idea to harvest a mature buck and let younger deer go another year.

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W H I T E -TA I L E D D E E R

“If the deer density on a property is high and a fawn crop is large, it would be almost impossible to maintain the desired deer density and make room for the recruitment of the new fawns, without over harvesting the adult does,” Korzekwa said. “In this scenario, about half of the doe harvest could be allocated to doe fawns late in the season, once it is possible to distinguish between a nubbin buck and a doe fawn.”

Korzekwa said that a healthy age structure of does is essential for a property to maintain a successful deer herd. With more young does in comparison to older ones, fawn crops would suffer because the immature does just aren’t as successful at producing and raising fawns.

LAND MANAGEMENT CONTINUUM Just because hunting season has arrived doesn’t mean that land management practices get put on the back burner. Cain Photo by Russell A. Graves

general may be a good idea this season,” Cain said. “However, it is all dependent upon what the deer numbers are looking like on a given ranch or property.”

According to Korzekwa, mature does make the best mothers and have the most success when it comes to producing and raising fawns. Thus, it makes more sense to harvest younger does, allowing the older ones to survive so that they can produce more fawns in the future.

“In order to rebound after a drought like what we’ve been experiencing, it’s important to have a number of does within the herd that have the ability to raise twins,” Korzekwa said. “Not all does can raise twins, but the mature ones have the best chance of doing so.”

During a year with high fawn crops like this one, Korzekwa said that properties with high deer densities could possibly benefit from a late doe fawn harvest.

For many hunters and wildlife managers, wall-worthy bucks are the goal. Hunters should see bigger racks and deer in better condition this year thanks to rains early in the growing season.

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Photo by Cissy Beasley

W H I T E -TA I L E D D E E R

Record drought the past few years has taken a toll on all wildlife and their habitat. But drought isn’t new to the Texas landscape and white-tailed deer are resilient.

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W H I T E -TA I L E D D E E R

Photo by Nate Skinner

said that landowners or managers should begin preparing to implement prescribed burns when rainfall and moisture return to the landscape.

“November through early February is an ideal time to practice prescribed burning,” Cain said. “This time period typically promotes a good response from forbs and winter weeds. The key is being ready to burn when the window of opportunity presents itself.”

Begin creating boundaries surrounding the burn area by discing along its perimeter. Discing not only acts as a firewall or buffer, but also creates opportunities for new vegetative growth when moisture or rainfall occurs, he said.

For properties that sustain livestock or cattle, rotational grazing is important. If conditions remain dry through the fall and winter, pastures will need to rest so there will still be some cover in the future.

A foggy morning spells a different approach to the hunt. But moisture in any form is a welcome sight.

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BIGGER BUCKS Chris Huey manages the Chaparrosa Ranch in Zavala County and said that the bucks he is seeing this year are definitely in much better shape than they were last season.

“Some of our bucks have made antler gains of 30-40 inches or more from last year,” Huey said. “It is truly amazing how white-tailed deer can rebound when their habitat receives a little bit of timely rain.

I was expecting to see an improvement from last season, but I didn’t realize it was going to be as significant as it is.”

Huey said that fawn crops this year have also been impressive.

“Last year we had almost no fawns,” Huey said. “I believe our fawn crop was as low as 6 percent. This season, however, we’ve got fawns all over the place.”

Echoing the thoughts of TPWD biologists, Huey said there is going to be a massive gap in age classes of mature bucks in several years due to last year’s extremely low fawn crop. What’s more, there’s nothing that can be done about it.

“We’ve just got to hope for another wet spring and good fawn crop next year, and let Mother Nature run her course,” Huey said. “We won’t hardly see any younger deer this season, but we will encounter a large number of mature bucks.”

Photo by Joseph Richards

W H I T E -TA I L E D D E E R

Big bucks don’t happen without careful management, and that includes deer density and the buck:doe ratio. As hunters and wildlife managers look ahead, managing the doe herd is critical.

Huey plans to manage deer harvests on the Chaparrosa this season in accordance with the desired deer density that he prefers to maintain, along with certain antler characteristics.

“We won’t harvest as many deer this year because of the gaps that we have in certain age classes,” Huey said. “With the increased fawn crop, recruitment will surpass our harvest. Our deer herd will continue to recover from the drought, while we maintain the same harvest criteria that we adhere to each season.”

In Stephens County, Ty Bartoskewitz manages the MT7 Ranch, where he said that timely spring rains helped to promote an increase in fawn crops in comparison with last year.

“Our fawn crops are looking to be about 40 percent this year, which is definitely an improvement from last season,” Bartoskewitz said. “Antler quality is looking decent as well, and I am excited to see what this season holds.”

Bartoskewitz said there seems to be a gap in younger age classes of deer due to

poor fawn crops during the previous two seasons. He expects to see the long-term effects of this in six to seven years when those age classes represent the population of mature bucks on the ranch.

“Last year we only harvested about 1015 percent of the does that we normally harvest, because fawn crops were so low,” Bartoskewitz said. “Our goal for our doe harvest is to counter recruitment, so it is dependent on how successful our fawn crops are.”

One of the main focuses on the MT7 recently has been allocating water sources to different areas of the ranch in the midst of the drought.

“We are moving around cattle frequently, as we practice rotational grazing,” Bartoskewitz said. “In doing so, we are having to create new surface water sources, and both the cattle and the wildlife are benefitting from them.”

Bartoskewitz said that they are constantly managing for extreme periods of drought like what the state has been experiencing in recent years.

“The goal is to be prepared as much as possible for times like this, so that we can do everything in our power to maintain our deer herd,” Bartoskewitz said. “It’s a year-round process, and it makes a difference when conditions are tough.”

Perhaps the largest takeaway from the current drought in the Lone Star State is that managing for dry conditions is the key to success. White-tailed deer have the innate ability to take advantage of the rare bountiful occurrences their environment provides and make physical gains. Combining year-round land management practices with a strategic harvest plan will help whitetails get the most out of positive environmental conditions. The result will be a continued increase in the caliber of deer across the state.

We never know when conditions will improve or get worse. However, if we are ready for both ends of the spectrum, then we can honestly say that we have done our part as true stewards of the land and of the wildlife that call it home.

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BY STEVE NELLE

Photo Courtesy of the Aldo Leopold Foundation and University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives

The Crop of Wisdom

“Every farm woodlot, in addition to yielding lumber, fuel and posts, should provide its owner a liberal education. This crop of wisdom never fails, but it is not always harvested.”

Aldo Leopold, 1949

I

n the days that Leopold made this observation, most farms had a designated woodlot in addition to crops, garden, poultry, and livestock. Farms of that era were largely self-sufficient, producing most of what was needed by the farm family.

The woodlot was devoted to growing trees. One of the prime purposes was to provide fuel for cooking and heating. Other products included sawlogs, posts, stays, poles, nuts, fruit, and berries. The woodlot was applied forestry on a small scale.

In addition to tangible tree products, Leopold said that the woodlot also provides a generous and reliable crop of wisdom, ready to be harvested by those who pay attention. Nowadays, few farms keep a woodlot, but similar lessons in wisdom are available from grasslands, brushlands, and creek bottoms. Any kind of landscape can provide its owner with a generous supply of wisdom if we take the time to learn the lessons and harvest the crop.

Wisdom is different than knowledge, but both are important.

Wisdom is the practical and beneficial application of knowledge and only comes after much observation, contemplation, and experience.

In Leopold’s own woodlot, he learned that windthrown trees, weakened by disease, were the only places where grouse could find refuge during severe snowstorms. Without the fallen trees, the grouse could not survive. Likewise, trees hollowed by heart rot were the home of honeybees, pileated woodpeckers, wood ducks, and many songbirds. In Leopold’s economy, such damaged trees were as valuable as healthy trees.

Intentional tree thinning was common practice. The owner must necessarily assign more value to some trees than others and be willing to reduce some trees to favor others. For example, the woodlot owner in East Texas might reduce excess pines, sweetgum, and elm to grow more or bigger oaks, walnut, or maple.

In a different context, some astute ranch managers today will hand spray certain clumps of pricklypear while leaving other

clumps intact which provide refuge for desirable grasses, forbs, or tree seedlings. The decision to spray or not spray is based on careful examination of each clump and what is growing inside.

In red-berry cedar country of West Texas, it is common to have hackberry, sumac, Roemer acacia, or chittam growing within the cedar. Grubbing the cedar would mean destroying the desirables that grow with it. Woodlot wisdom tells the manager to leave those cedar bushes that are protecting other valuable species while removing those that do not.

Similar wisdom applies to thinning excess mesquite. The discerning land manager knows the value of mesquite and seeks a happy medium between too much and too little. Smaller mesquites are often individually removed, leaving larger ones to create a desirable mesquite savanna.

Chip Merrill, former director of TCU Ranch Management program, had an enviable problem on his ranch near Crowley.

He had too much big bluestem. While big bluestem is superb forage during the growing season, it falls over and melts down during the winter.

He had to increase grazing pressure just enough to reduce the big bluestem which allowed an increase in Indiangrass, which stands up well for winter grazing. This kind of fine tuning is the essence of practical woodlot wisdom.

A ranch west of Monahans had an extreme abundance of black grama, bush muhly, plains bristlegrass, and other excellent grasses. The owner wanted good scaled quail habitat but the grass was far too thick. He needed to intentionally but carefully overgraze for a while to thin out the over-abundant grasses and allow more forbs and weeds to grow. It was unconventional wisdom.

This abundant crop of wisdom is available to every landowner but is not always utilized. If the owner seldom walks the pastures, looks closely, or thinks carefully, the crop will rot and go to waste. But if there is innate curiosity, thoughtful observation, and logical deduction, the crop is rich and profitable.

WRITER’S NOTE: Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) is considered the father of modern wildlife management. This bi-monthly column will feature Leopold's thought-provoking philosophies as well as commentary.

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TEXAS WILDLIFE

GUNS & HUNTING

For a tale of a hunt long ago, it seems fitting to use a black and white photo to illustrate it. Is this the “muy grande” buck the author pursued? Or a younger buck that he enjoyed messing with?

Whitetails in Retro Article by LARRY WEISHUHN Photos courtesy of LARRY WEISHUHN OUTDOORS

“S

enor Colorado, ese viejo venado macho con los mucho puntos que has estada cazando estaba rozanddose esta manana por seco rio. Deberias tomar tus cuernos de traqueto y tartar sacudirlo! Este muy grande!”

In an excited burst of Spanish, Juanito informed me of a “muy grande” buck he saw. I had asked Juanito to be on the lookout for the buck I had seen earlier in the season.

I saw the buck just long enough to determine he was mature based on body confirmation and darkly stained hocks, typical of

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bucks at least four years of age and older with the oncoming rut.

No doubt he had a massive rack with many points. But I didn’t know for sure.

I thanked Juanito, the local vaquero. He had been a great source of information concerning the local deer, especially older bucks. His intel had helped me take several nice deer in the past.

In return, I made certain he and his family were well-stocked with venison and other staples. With the rut just beginning, I really liked his idea of trying to rattle the big buck in.

GUNS & HUNTING

It was mid-morning many years ago when Juanito and I spoke. The morning hunt had been fun, but not productive as far as seeing deer. A full moon lit the landscape the night before, rising as the sun set, and setting as the sun rose. Past experience told me deer would most likely be moving mid-day from about 10:30 a.m. until about 3:00 p.m. or so in the afternoon during and approaching a full moon, but also when there was little or no moon.

At 10:00 a.m., I headed toward the dry river bed where Juanito had seen the big buck.

I still-hunted along the edge of the thicket next to the river bed until I found a spot where I would have shooting lanes to the left and right directly downwind, knowing regardless which way a buck approached he would end up directly downwind to scent whatever was fighting.

Years ago, after missing an opportunity at a buck because he came in on my far right side, I taught myself to shoot lefthanded. Being able to shoot from both sides has helped me take

a good number of big game animals I would not have been able to take if I only shot right-handed.

Sitting against a gnarly mesquite, my .270 Win propped on homemade tripod shooting sticks, I waited until it was straightup noon before doing a “fit, fit, fit, fffffeeeeeeeee” snort-wheeze with my natural voice, the most aggressive and challenging vocalization a whitetail buck makes. Then I started my rattling sequence, banging the antlers together and meshing them while kicking the brush and shoving my heels into the ground, doing my best to imitate two mature bucks fighting.

Ten seconds into rattling, a buck erupted out of the thicket.

He stopped 15 steps away staring intently in my direction, hair standing on end, drool dripping from his lips, eyes bugged. He had 10 long points on massive beams. He appeared to be a threeyear-old.

I continued rattling. The buck started walking away. When he did, another buck came running in, nearly bumping into the first buck. This one was a really nice eight-point likely

Rattling up big bucks is a time-honored method for hunting white-tailed deer. As the author learned the hard way, however, it’s wise to sit still for a few minutes after deciding to move to another location. Often, big bucks will lurk unseen, scoping the situation to determine who’s fighting who.

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GUNS & HUNTING

approaching or exceeding 140 Boone & Crockett points, swollen neck, dark hocks… tempting! But he was not the multi-tined buck I had seen earlier nor the deer Juanito described.

Both bucks started to leave. I grunted.

They immediately stopped, staring in my direction. A couple of minutes later they drifted away. I started rattling again. This time, two young six-points came running in.

Each time they started to leave I grunted a deep “aaaakkkkk” and immediately they came back. I messed with them for five minutes, grunting to them using a variety of vocalizations to see how they would respond. Finally, they tired of the game and walked away.

I rattled one more time. Nothing showed. I stayed where I was another 30 minutes before getting up to move a quarter mile before rattling again. Often older, bigger antlered bucks will come to rattling, but stand statue-like still just beyond where they can be seen…watching, listening, smelling, trying to determine what is making the rattling noise. If they smell human, they normally slip away, unseen and unscathed.

In earlier years, I often made the mistake of getting up after finishing my last rattling sequence, spooking a big buck, seen only as his rack and flared tail disappeared into the cactus.

The hunt just described took place a long time ago, but I have repeated the basics many times in the ensuing years.

I have rattled in many bucks, so I could observe and learn from their behavior.

I truly do love messing with whitetails during the fall in Texas.

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Natural Resources Institute

Texas A&M University

TAMU N E W S

Applying an aquatic herbicide with a backpack sprayer works well for marshy areas. For deeper water, you’ll need a boat equipped with a sprayer.

Treating Your Pond vs.

Treating Your Pasture Article by BRITTANY CHESSER, Aquatic Vegetation Management Program Specialist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and TODD SINK, Associate Professor and Aquaculture Extension Specialist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Photos courtesy of TEXAS A&M AGRILIFE EXTENSION SERVICE

W

hile some core management principles such as early detection or integrating management practices can be applied across the board, there are several unique considerations when treating a pond versus a pasture.

Most importantly, herbicides used in a terrestrial or pasture setting are typically not labelled for aquatic use, despite occasionally having the same active ingredient. Using your favorite broad-spectrum herbicide out of your chemical cabinet

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NOVEMBER 2023

could be illegal according to the label, have negative effects on your pond’s ecosystem, be potentially lethal to non-target aquatic organisms such as fish or frogs, and lead to generally lackluster results.

There are more than 300 herbicides registered in the United States, but only 15 active ingredients that can be labelled for aquatic use in Texas. This can get a little tricky, as some wellknown active ingredients, like glyphosate and 2,4-D used in

TA M U N A T U R A L R E S O U R C E S I N S T I T U T E N E W S

rangeland and pasture management, can also have brand names labelled for aquatic use, but not all formulations are or can be aquatically labelled.

In many cases, it is not the main active ingredient that makes it unsuitable for aquatic use, but rather other ingredients such as surfactants or defoaming agents that are included in the mix, or the main active ingredient has been modified by substitution of an amine, ester, salt, or acid that is not aquatically approved. Landowners and managers should always take time to read the label and ensure that the product they are using is labelled accordingly.

Additionally, your pond is three dimensional, and this changes application rates and calculations. Herbicide applications to pastures focus on the two-dimensional area (length x width) that you are treating. But when treating nuisance species in ponds, most of the time we are looking at the total three-dimensional volume— length x width x depth. This is often communicated as total acre-feet on the label.

One acre foot is one surface acre one foot deep. So a 0.75-acre pond that averages 8 feet deep is 6 acre feet. For this reason, have a good understanding of your average pond depth. Thinking your pond is deeper than it really is will result in over application and overuse of chemicals. That could result in killing fish and other non-target aquatic organisms.

Thinking your pond is shallower will result in underdosing and ineffective treatments which will waste money.

Once you have accurately determined the volume of chemical you are applying, don’t get hung up on how much water you are using to dilute the herbicide. Instead, focus on the recommended concentration based on the total water volume according to the label, and apply it evenly across the target area for even mixing within the water column.

Another aquatic consideration is exposure time. Effective exposure times for aquatic herbicides can range anywhere from a few hours to more than a month depending on the active ingredient and formulation. In a pasture setting, exposure times can be affected by weather conditions, mainly rain, while in an aquatic environment any water dilu-

tion, whether it be a rain event, topping off the pond with well water, or flow due to springs, can impact overall results.

For ponds that consistently experience in-flow or out-flow, herbicides requiring longer exposure times will not be feasible.

Lastly, when selecting an aquatic herbicide, keep in mind your intended

water uses. Water use restrictions vary among active ingredients and choosing the wrong herbicide can result in not being able use water for livestock or crop/ turf irrigation. For more information on aquatically labelled herbicide options and water use restrictions, please visit AquaPlant.tamu.edu.

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TEXAS WILDLIFE

B ORDERL ANDS NEWS BORDERLANDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT SUL ROSS STATE UNIVERSITY

Anthropogenic Effects on Scaled Quail Habitat Selection on an Active Oil & Gas Field Photo by Jason Brooks, ConocoPhillips wildlife biologist.

Article by BROOKE BOWMAN and RYAN LUNA, Borderlands Research Institute, Sul Ross State University

A scaled quail that shares its home with oil and gas development perches in front of a pumpjack in the Permian Basin where this research was conducted.

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E

nergy development can reduce biodiversity as habitat is further fragmented by increased energy demands.

While energy sources are being diversified to include renewables as humans feel compelled to combat climate change, oil and gas continue to be the largest sources of energy development world-wide and will likely continue to hold that distinction for decades to come.

Recent technological advancements, such as horizontal drilling coupled with hydraulic fracturing, have made extraction of shale resources more economically practical. Since the early 2000s, this has led to a significant increase in unconventional drilling practices in the United States. U.S. oil production, in turn, began to flourish, and we now produce the most oil in the world.

Oil and gas development impacts wildlife in a variety of ways across species and ecoregions. First, it directly contributes to habitat loss and fragmentation through constructing roads, well pads, buildings, transmission lines, fences, surface pipelines, compressors, evaporation ponds, and reserve pits. Additional wildlife mortality related to oil and gas development is linked to roads, fences, gas flares, contamination, and powerlines.

Conversely, indirect effects of oil and gas development on wildlife such as avoidance can be much harder to measure.

Researchers have documented examples of displacement and avoidance behavior of several groups of taxa on land developed for oil and gas. However, these studies illustrate several

This scaled quail was caught during a night capture to collect GPS data from an attached tracking device. It is easier to recapture tagged individuals when they are roosting rather than when they are active during the day.

Map courtesy of Borderlands Research Institute

inconsistencies in how wildlife responds to oil and gas development across space, species, and habitat types. Because of this, it is especially important for wildlife managers to reference studies conducted in their target species’ immediate or surrounding areas.

How quail react to oil and gas development is largely understudied. Understanding the impact on quail is important for many reasons including their role as prey species and seed dispersers in the ecosystem, their contribution to conservation revenue through game bird hunting, and their decreasing populations.

These factors highlight the importance of advancing this area of research.

Quail management practices in the Permian Basin, home to most of the state’s oil and gas development, are often borrowed from research conducted in the Trans-Pecos and Rolling Plains ecoregions. However, the Permian Basin spans three ecoregions: the Trans-Pecos, the Edward’s Plateau, and the High Plains.

The Permian Basin is unique in its vegetative communities, soil types, and the intensity of the energy development which covers the landscape.

The scaled quail’s range, which covers a portion of the southwestern United States, completely overlaps with the continuously developing Permian Basin.

Therefore, it is imperative to determine whether or not energy development in the Permian Basin is contributing to behavioral changes in scaled quail which could negatively affect their already declining populations.

Our research team found this topic interesting because West Texas oil and gas development is predicted to expand.

In particular, we were interested in habitat selection and movement behavior in response to this development.

Scaled quail are the most ecologically and economically important quail species in West Texas because of their extensive distribution and the distinctive challenge they present hunters by running instead of flying. In the past, scaled quail populations in West Texas were more robust and widespread. However, their populations have been decreasing since the early 1960s due to changes in

Photo courtesy of Borderlands Research Institute

BORDERL ANDS NEWS

Location of the Quail Ranch LLC and Cross-L Ranch LLC in Upton County, Texas, where data collection took place.

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27

BORDERL ANDS NEWS

land use practices which trigger desertification and woody brush encroachment, rangeland deterioration from overgrazing, frequent drought conditions, and disease.

Scaled quail favor nesting in native grasses and ingest more grass seeds than

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other quail species. Shrub cover is also necessary for feeding, loafing, escape, and night-roosting. Therefore, they prefer habitat comprised of arid and semi-arid grasslands that contain about 10-15 percent shrub cover. West Texas landscapes have dramatically changed from luxuriant grassland savannas interspersed with shrubs to shrubland savannas interspersed with grass.

Properties that practice wildlife management alongside energy development may apply strategies, such as supplemental feeding, to help alleviate direct losses of food resources on the landscape from habitat loss and fragmentation. In the southwestern United States, supplemental feeding is often practiced, helping bolster scaled quail populations.

The effects of supplemental feeding on scaled quail have not been adequately studied; however, thesis research completed in the Trans-Pecos region suggests that scaled quail home range size shrinks when supplemental feeding is implemented.

To identify whether environmental change caused by people, known as anthropogenic factors, influence habitat selection and movement behavior in scaled quail inhabiting the Permian Basin, this study was conducted on two ranches owned and managed by ConocoPhillips in Upton County, Texas. A control site with minimal oil and gas development and developed sites with intense oil and gas development were identified as scaled quail trapping locations.

Backpack-style global positioning system (GPS) loggers were deployed on selected individual quail which recorded latitude and longitude coordinates every four hours from 2021 - 2022. The data allowed us to identify which environmental and anthropogenic factors significantly affected scaled quail as they select habitat and move across the landscape.

Monthly vegetation greenness was the most impactful factor affecting scaled quail habitat utilization across intensities of development. Scaled quail are more likely to use habitat with a higher greenness value than habitat with a lower greenness value during all months of the year. In fact, scaled quail are 35 percent more likely to use habitat

NOVEMBER 2023

that has greener vegetation than habitat with less green (or no) vegetation. This highlights the importance of healthy, green vegetation to scaled quail in the study area.

Distance to well pads and to supplemental feeders affected scaled quail habitat selection and movement behavior in our study area at different scales. For example, at a 10-killometer landscape scale (large in comparison to our target species’ step-by-step movement capabilities), scaled quail would likely choose habitat far from well pads. However, in their immediate vicinity (at a 1-meter selection scale), this preference is negligible, meaning they will choose habitat with and without well pads similarly.

Supplemental feeders affected quail selection and movement more strongly than well pads. When choosing habitat on a step-by-step basis (at a 1-meter scale), they are more likely to choose habitat close to feeders. Furthermore, supplemental feeders had such a strong effect on quail that a repeating movement pattern was observed across both oil and gas intensities. Scaled quail chose habitat closest to feeders around 2:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. and chose habitat farther from feeders at around 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m.

This study is the first to assess anthropogenic effects on scaled quail habitat selection and movement behavior in the Permian Basin. Wildlife biologists who work in conjunction with oil companies to conserve scaled quail populations should focus on reseeding disturbed areas with native, herbaceous vegetation and adding supplemental feeders to their properties.

In addition, wildlife managers should continue setting aside land which harbors healthy quail habitat from development.

While our study suggests that well pads only slightly affect scaled quail, more studies should be conducted with larger sample sizes of birds, longer duration periods, and at larger scales to determine whether or not this is true across the Permian Basin. As energy needs and development expand across the United States, studies such as this will continue to be important for wildlife conservation in these shared spaces.

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Photo by Sally Brittingham Wallace (1926 - 2008. Watt Matthews’ niece.)

NUGGETS OF GOLD

A.S. Jackson (left) and Lambshead Ranch employee Talmage Palmer, banding wild turkeys in 1950.

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NUGGETS OF GOLD The Field Notes of A. S. Jackson Article by RICKY LINEX

F

or 40 years I have treasured a 77page softcover publication known to quail hunters and managers by many names including “Bulletin No. 48,” “A Quail Management Handbook,” and by its full name of “A Handbook for Bobwhite Quail Management in the West Texas Rolling Plains.”

This work resulted from a lifetime of experience from Alfred Sloan Jackson, often cited as A.S. Jackson and known to his closest friends as Jack. Printed in 1964

by TPWD, the information and management recommendations are still gospel for those who manage quail habitat.

The handbook is available from TPWD on the web as a PDF. Occasionally a few original copies turn up, so don’t give up hope of someday holding a copy in your own hands.

Who was A.S. Jackson and why does he hold such admiration from quail hunters and others who love the great outdoors?

A.S. Jackson was born February 5, 1901, in Dallas County and grew up in a farming family. While still a youngster, the family moved to a cotton farm at Wolf Ridge near Gainesville, Texas.

Jackson graduated from Gainesville in 1920 and farmed until the age of 25 when he enrolled at North Texas State Teachers College (NTSTC) in Denton, Texas.

He received a bachelor’s degree and married Mary Elizabeth Hooks in 1930.

He taught one year at the NTSTC Demonstration School, then taught science for one year at Grandview before serving as biology teacher and principal at Throckmorton from 1933-1941.

Perhaps this story shows the outdoor nature of the young A.S. Jackson. While serving as a biology teacher at Throckmorton High School in 1937, one of the extracurricular educational activities

that Jackson let his ninth-grade students conduct, with little oversight to allow their creativity to run free, was to develop hand drawn images with text demonstrating sportsmanship in the field.

Jackson thought that rural kids needed to understand gun safety and that they would learn better safety if they developed these training aids themselves. The final products were submitted by Jackson to the National Rifle Association and were printed in their November 1937 issue.

In June 1941, at the age of 40, Jackson became an employee of the Texas Game, Fish & Oyster Commission which in 1963 merged with the State Parks Board to become Texas Parks and Wildlife.

He received his initial training in Lubbock then moved to Paducah where he concentrated on studying quail and prairie chickens.

By 1943, he was working from Albany and in 1946 moved his family to the historic Lambshead Ranch in Shackelford and Throckmorton Counties. Here, Jackson researched the Rio Grande turkey as well as quail and dove. He developed a lifelong friendship with Lambshead Ranch manager Watt Matthews, who was born in 1899 and spent all of his 98 years on the family ranch save four years attending Princeton University.

Perhaps this could be a lesson for all young biologists and others who work on the land. Jackson kept a daily field journal throughout his career and even into retirement. He noted weather conditions, work activities, details of travel hardships, and keen observations about plants, animals, birds, insects, and other happenings that he deemed significant.

This information is very interesting and helps us even today to understand the relationships between the land, climate,

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Photo by Sally Brittingham Wallace (1926 - 2008. Watt Matthews’ niece.)

NUGGETS OF GOLD

Turkey trap with blind in background. The rock fence still stands near the Clear Fork of the Brazos River which flows for 30 miles through Lambshead Ranch.

livestock, and wildlife. These diaries were left in his office in Canadian when he retired from TPWD on March 31, 1966.

Through the dedication of two retired and now deceased TPWD employees, Danny Swepston, biologist at Canyon, Texas, and Chuck Kowaleski, Farm Bill coordinator in Temple, these diaries, reports, and a few field maps are now housed in the Sam Houston State University (SHSU) Natural History Collections.

A Memorandum of Understanding signed by Clayton Wolf, then TPWD Wildlife Division director and William Godwin, curator of the SHSU Natural History Collections, transferred the documents for perpetual care.

Reading through these diaries is a look back in time when wildlife management was not the buzzword it is today. These early biologists were at the forefront in creating what we now practice as sound wildlife management as well as good land management.

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In reading the diary entries, I wondered what Jackson had written in early December 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor. I read his diary observations for the week following December 7 and his daily entries stayed the course of a field biologist/naturalist who seemed to keep the activities happening across the ocean separate from his daily work.

Like a news reporter wanting to know the who, what, when, where, and why, Jackson recorded these nuggets: • “January 20th, 1943. Bunkhouse camp, SMS Tongue River Project, King County, Texas. Early here with Jay Stokley Ligon [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]. Travis Roberts [Lambshead employee called to US Navy April 11, 1943]. Made camp 2 project by Finney gate, toward flats above river, south of Water Canyon windmill. Two flat tires delayed day’s work. Had to walk back to camp

NUGGETS OF GOLD

for irons, repairs for tube. 7 mi in Project, noted about 25 [bobwhite] kills, 5 marsh hawks examined, one had fed on meadowlark. Late tried trapping two coveys’ bobwhites, no success, combination Ligon’s trap & my metal net wings poor for trapping, birds shy of, too late in p.m. for trapping, flew. Saw several coveys, but decrease in numbers over December obvious, have moved out. Range shows highest rate of predation I have ever witnessed.

Marsh hawks most common hawk, then red-tails. Worked on quail net in spare time.”

Jackson’s notes frequently mention the hardships of numerous flats and often becoming stuck in muddy ranch roads.

Bias ply tires of that time all had tubes so the flats could be fixed even in the field if tire irons, patches, glue, and air pump were carried on the truck. Keep in mind that the entry above was during the rationing period of World War II so extra tools and patches may not have been allowed for every vehicle.

• “What: Horned owl, skunk, quail, When: Feb 7, 1944.

Where: Head Buffalo Canyon, Swenson Unit, Swenson Tongue River Ranch, 18 mi. NW Guthrie, King County, Texas.

Horned owl lives in thick-set chittum [bumelia] grove here. Today found 4 pellets, all skunk hair, skeletons, head of skunk hanging from limb of tree. Found old pellet showing predation on quail, crop contents in owl pellet, panic grass seeds, mesquite beans from cow manure, Latter most numerous.”

Told of a turkey hanging in a tree, which he found 8-9 months later, this entry reveals his tenacity in following up on an unusual report given to him: • “What: Accidental mortality wild turkey gobbler When: Found March 3rd 1944 Where: 10 ft off South Boundary Mars unit BH Mars Ranch 11 miles north Paducah, Cottle County, Texas.

Jackson’s early diaries were loose pages, later using bound books for each year. Photo by Ricky Linex.

Turkey reported hanging in tree by river in summer 1943. Two previous searches not found. Today located still hanging in tall dense limbed chittum on canyon bank. Skeleton, enough feathers, beard to identify as

wild gobbler. Bird slipped through lateral crotch cut limb, bent tough pencil size twig across Y in front of leg, thus trapping once turkey fell forward. Had to cut limb to remove. No sign shot on bones or limbs of tree.”

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NUGGETS OF GOLD

and Honey in East Texas; Henry C. Hahn, Jr., Edwards Plateau biologist who developed the Hahn walking deer survey; Val Lehmann, later to become biologist on King Ranch; Rollin Baker, early Texas field biologist and later mammalogy professor at Michigan State University; and Walter P. Taylor, senior biologist US Fish & Wildlife Service.

• “General comments. Albany, Shackelford County, Texas.

June 26th. 1944 8 a.m. wrote rough draft Guns and Ammo magazine article for Texas Game and Fish. Late, drove to City Lake to test 22 rifles for accuracy, Martini Johnson 10 lb., Remington 33, about 5 lbs. Under difficult conditions could shoot light one best. Will test again using muzzle rest.”

• “June 27th, 1944. Today, office: rewrote finished draft: Japanese infantry rifle, Japanese Arisaka rifle “Fresh from the Pacific” for Texas Game and Fish [published in September, 1944].”

• “General Comments. Hayford Camp, Lambshead Ranch, Throckmorton County. Texas, December 15, 1944, this AM, clear, brisk after cold night, flock turkeys came down old rock fence, fed within few yards where I squatted frozen in stooped position caught in, ate up maize placed for quail, flew over my head to river, walked river to mouth Paint Creek, about 60 turkeys in two flocks up here. Met [Talmage] Palmer coming down, he counted 14 gobblers

Diary entry from 1942 cites first person data on turkey extirpation by 1890 in Cottle County. Photo by Ricky Linex.

• “What: Multiple nesting Bobwhite and scaled Quail When: May 13th 1944 Where: Sand Dunes North campsite Swenson Tongue River Ranch 18 Mi Northwest Guthrie, King County, Texas.

Flushed one legged blue quail from nest in the field through dunes made by old cow trail. Had nine eggs of scaled quail plus fresh eggs of bobwhite quail. This makes several nests found and explains the occasional covey scaled quail which regularly has a bobwhite or two included.”

While Jackson may not have reported many details about the war in his diary, he and other biologists were pressed into service to write articles for the department’s “Texas Game and Fish” (TGFO) magazine due to the regular writers being younger and pressed into military service.

Other notable TGFO biologists who contributed articles included Dan Lay, biologist and co-author of Land of Bears

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Last month on the job, at 65 years of age, and Jackson is still recording facts and figures including covey flushes along a transect. Note he always added general comments to all entries. Photo by Ricky Linex.

far up Paint Creek, 4 hens, 3 gobblers. Went back got feed for Palmer to put out for turkeys across [Clear Fork] river, myself unable to cross, water too deep. Made trip to Brockmans Bend; carried sack feed to A. Wright for use here. Turkey roosts in this bottom at least two locations, night at Hayford.

Sometimes the activities noted for a particular day revealed odd events. The fact that the person wanting the turkeys was a famous rancher who helped save the plains bison in Texas only adds to this unusual entry.

• “What: Note on Chas. Goodnight When: June 9, 1945 Where: Fort Griffin, Texas Had talk with Herve Herron, born at Fort Griffin, father was Sheriff there during buffalo boom time, Herron told me that he caught 2 hens and gobblers, sent to Goodnight Ranch in Donley County at request Charles Goodnight about 20 years ago, Goodnight wanted some Clear Fork [of the Brazos River] turkeys.”

In quarterly and annual progress reports to the Game, Fish and Oyster Commission, Jackson always led off with weather

Photo by Sally Brittingham Wallace (1926 - 2008. Watt Matthews’ niece.)

NUGGETS OF GOLD

A.S. Jackson making field notes on tagged wild turkey, held by Lambshead Ranch employee Leonard Royal, 1950.

conditions and most importantly the rainfall, giving the total for the current year, percent change from the previous year, and how the current year’s rainfall compared with the long-term average. In addition to painting a picture for those reading his reports, this reinforces the observational skills he possessed, skills of a true naturalist.

From his annual report covering July 1, 1947, to June 30, 1948, he reported: • “A total of 25.40 inches of rain was recorded at Project headquarters during the year. This was 40 percent less than the amount of rain during the preceding year, and approximately the normal of the 48-year record for the location. Nevertheless, there were two periods of damaging dry weather. These included, respectively, the months of July, August, September of 1947, and March, April, 1948. On the Clear Fork watershed in Haskell, Shackelford, and Throckmorton counties these were terminated by a series of heavy rains beginning in October and May, respectively, but the rainfall remained uneven in amount and distribution for Northwest Texas.

Shortage of water remained acute for a major part of the lower plains. Wheat production, usually a reliable index to moisture conditions in Northwest Texas, was less than 50 percent of that for 1947.”

“American Cattle Trails” book inscribed by Watt Matthews to A.S. Jackson in 1952; the two were true friends. Jackson returned the book to Lambshead 40 years later. Photo by Matthew Brant, Lambshead family member.

His writing uses words much like a paint brush paints a picture of current conditions as well as giving the causes and effects of what was seen. Observational skills combined with a flair for writing, as witnessed when reading “Bulletin No. 48,” seemed to come easy for Jackson, but nothing comes easy without putting in the required work to develop those skills. Jackson packed a WWW.TEXAS-WILDLIFE.ORG

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NUGGETS OF GOLD

The L A N D creates a LIFESTYLE which leaves a LEGACY

shead Ranch. Jackson, 81 years old and 31 years since last working on Lambshead but with a mind still indelibly sharp, wrote 34 double-spaced typed pages that included detailed list of plants and animals as well as a meticulous history of wildfires, prairie dogs, and early history of Throckmorton County. Part of this detail surely came from his diaries as well as self-typed bibliographies found in his files describing Texas through the eyes of the first explorers and military travelers.

Found in his files was a letter in 1988 from a member of the Throckmorton High School graduating class of 1938.

This letter includes an invitation to at-

ton County, Texas.’ Numbers of my students helped count doves and find nest.”

The 2nd Battalion of the Rolling Plains Bobwhite Brigade, held in June 1994 west of the Clear Fork of the Brazos River and just across the river from his beloved Lambshead Ranch, dedicated the camp to A.S. Jackson who had passed away on February 28, 1994, at the age of 93. The previous year, although in poor health, Jackson had autographed 30 copies of his “Bobwhite Quail in the West Texas Rolling Plains” to be given to cadets in the 1st Battalion.

Jennifer Heirman Meador, top cadet of the 1st Battalion, wrote a thank you letter Photo by Ricky Linex

lifetime of experience and observations in the 25 years he worked for TPWD. Author Frances M. Holden, writing “Lambshead Before Interwoven,” called on Jackson in 1981, 15 years after he retired in 1966, to prepare an addendum covering the flora and fauna of Lamb-

LAND • LIFESTYLE • LEGACY •

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Taken 50 years after Jackson’s retirement, red-tail hawks hunt for field mice following brush control on the Lambshead Ranch, activities Jackson would have noted in his diary.

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36 T E X A S W I L D L I F E

tend the 50th homecoming and stated … “you are among our best remembered and respected teachers.” Jackson’s most gracious reply expressed his regrets that due to being 87 years of age, travel was difficult without a driver.

He included, “looking back over a long working life, it seems that my seven-year period as high school principal there was a plateau of my life. As you may remember, it was in Throckmorton County that I carried out research for my Master’s thesis ‘The Mourning Dove in Throckmor-

NOVEMBER 2023

to Jackson. His handwritten reply to her was courteous and included this prose, “Your good letter is somehow valued by me more than a wall of my out-patient room covered with national and professional honors. That is because I recognize in your letter the kind of loved (sic) Biology students I had while high school principal and 9th year Biology teacher.”

His final sentence perfectly sums up his life and legacy, “All success and happiness to you – Those who love nature need never be lonely.”

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H I L L C O U N T RY S I LV E R

In recent years, there has been emerging interest in gray foxes and other mesopredators with respect to understanding their roles in the ecosystem.

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NOVEMBER 2023

HILL COUNTRY SILVER The Charismatic Gray Fox

Article and photos by JOSEPH RICHARDS

T

he fox’s dark eyes stared through the shadowy undergrowth.

As curiosity took over, the fox emerged into a grassy opening followed by his mate. The pair eventually stepped into the open and the light revealed the rich amber as their dark pupils adjusted.

As we analyzed one another, I was reminded of how fortunate it is to see these timid and secretive predators.

Just as I thought this, the vigilant foxes slunk into the brush to continue their mysterious lives.

The Texas Hill Country is renowned for its many colorful hues, whether it be the multicolored palette of spring wildflowers along a hillside or the rosy-pink granite boulders of Enchanted Rock. The native wildlife takes on equal renown with many eye-catching shapes, shades, and forms.

The silver and rust-orange pelage of the gray fox is worthy of honorable mention.

Two species of fox inhabit Texas— the common gray or gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) and the red fox (Vulpes vulpes). The gray fox is commonly encountered throughout the state due to its adaptability to human presence and disturbance.

Gray fox habitats vary widely, but the animals are especially common in the wooded bottomlands and oak-savanna uplands of the Edward’s Plateau. The red fox was introduced in Central Texas in the 1890s, mainly for hound hunting as they possessed more stamina during the chase than the established gray foxes.

The gray fox is easily distinguishable from the red fox by the black dorsal stripe along its back and tail. The gray fox’s scientific name cinereoargenteus means ash-silver, which is attributed to its ashygray appearance. The red fox sports a distinct, white-tipped tail and blackish

The gray fox’s Latin name cinereoargenteus means ash-silver. This is attributed to its ashygray appearance.

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The gray fox is a skilled climber and will even den in hollow tree cavities more than 30 feet above the ground.

The gray fox curls its tail when in a resting position, revealing the distinct black tail stripe characteristic of this native species.

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legs. Color phases vary dramatically with the red fox which can lead to misidentification.

The gray fox is a mesopredator or mesocarnivore, a group that includes predators occupying middle levels of a food web. This group may include foxes, raccoons, skunks, opossums, weasels, and many others. Mesopredators form an important component of the ecological food web as they consume prey and are in turn consumed by larger apex predators.

Although they occupy overlapping ranges with coyotes, gray foxes tend to avoid areas with high coyote activity due to the risk of predation and tend to be more active in areas with low coyote densities. The theory that low- or middle-ranking predators expand their distribution and increase in abundance following the absence of larger apex predators is known as mesopredator release.

Growing up in the Texas Hill Country, I had the pleasure of observing various wildlife in my backyard, including a family of gray foxes. My parents and I would spend hours on the porch watching the foxes dart up trees and skulk through the wooded thickets, the adult foxes foraging for edible morsels to take back to the den.

On occasion, the female fox or vixen would lead her kits from the den and allow them to explore their surroundings while playing and relentlessly pursuing their siblings. Their playful patterns would translate to survival and hunting skills later in life.

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A mated pair of gray foxes maintain connections through touching and often greet each other by bumping their noses and sniffing one another.

plant material make up a prominent portion of the gray fox’s diet at certain times of the year. They are considered generalist feeders, with food items varying with seasonal and regional availability. The gray fox is also opportunistic and able to shift its diet to exploit human-sourced foods like trash and pet food, an advantage for occupying urban areas.

In recent years, there has been emerging interest in mesopredators with respect to understanding their ecological roles in balancing the ecosystem.

Previous research efforts mainly focused on the extent of fox-caused depredation of game species, domestic poultry, and livestock. There was also interest in the species due to its economic importance as a popular furbearer and public health concerns over diseases such as rabies and distemper. The gray fox is an abundant species throughout their range and is listed as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Gray foxes are believed to be monogamous, meaning they form one mated pair for life. Family units consist of an adult pair and several of that year’s young.

The mated pair maintain connections through touching and often greet each other by bumping their noses and sniffing one another.

One of the gray fox’s most interesting behaviors is their ability to climb trees.

The massive limbs of live oaks that are a common feature in the Texas Hill Country provide a living network of trails for their tiny paws. With great speed and agility, the gray fox scales vertical trunks and runs through the tree canopy. The brushy tail balances the fox’s slender body as it leaps and bounds between limbs.

The gray fox will even den in hollow tree cavities. Some records show dens more than 30 feet above the ground.

Areas with lots of tree canopy offer protection from coyotes, raptors, and other natural predators.

Although they do consume a variety of small mammals, birds, and insects, findings from multiple nutritional studies indicate that fruits, berries, nuts, and

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Photo courtesy of the Noble Research Institute Among the many aquatic plants that ducks prefer is longleaf pondweed. Selecting plants, both aquatic and grown around the edges of a pond or wetland, will help attract waterfowl.

FOOD CHOICE PLAYS KEY ROLE IN ATTRACTING MIGRATORY DUCKS Article by MIKE PORTER, Senior Ag Consultant with Noble Research Institute

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nderstanding duck food preferences is important when managing impoundments and wetlands to attract migratory ducks. Dabbling ducks and wood ducks are the focus of most duck hunters and duck habitat managers in southern Oklahoma and northern Texas. Dabbling duck species include mallard, gadwall, American wigeon, northern pintail, northern shoveler, three teal species (green-winged, bluewinged and cinnamon) and a few other less common species. Diving ducks such as canvasback, redhead, ring-necked duck and lesser scaup tend to receive less management focus in Oklahoma and Texas.

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Several fall and/or winter food habit studies with sample sizes representing more than 25 ducks have been conducted on dabbling ducks or wood ducks in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas. Twenty-six of these studies are summarized here.

Duck foods that occur in southern Oklahoma or northern Texas are listed below. These foods comprised more than 1 percent of the duck diets in at least two of the studies or were listed as one of the three most utilized foods in a study.

Each asterisk indicates the most utilized food that occurs in southern Oklahoma or northern Texas from each study. The

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asterisks do not total 26 because a few of the most utilized foods do not occur in southern Oklahoma or northern Texas.

AQUATIC PLANTS • Coontail (Ceratophyllum demersum) • Duckweeds (Lemna spp.)

• Duck’s-meat (Spirodela spp.)

• Filamentous algae* • Muskgrasses (Chara spp.)

• Pondweeds* (Potamogeton spp., especially longleaf pondweed) • Southern naiad** (Najas guadalupensis) • Stoneworts (Nitella spp.)

• Water milfoils (Myriophyllum spp.)

F O O D C H O I C E P L AY S K E Y R O L E I N AT T R AC T I N G M I G R AT O RY D U C K S

• Water primrose (Ludwigia spp.)

• Water shield (Brasenia schreberi) CROP SEEDS • Corn** (Zea mays) • Sorghum* (Sorghum bicolor) • Soybean (Glycine max) • Wheat (Triticum aestivum) GRASS SEEDS • American cup scale (Sacciolepsis striata) • Bearded sprangletop (Leptochloa fusca) • Broadleaf signal grass (Urochloa platyphylla) • Panic grasses** (Panicum spp., especially fall panicum) • Paspalums (Paspalum spp.)

• Rice cut-grass (Leersia oryzoides) • Salt grass (Distichlis spicata) • Wild millets*** (Echinochloa spp.)

SEDGE SEEDS, RHIZOMES AND TUBERS (Most of these are somewhat aquatic, existing in shallow water or wet soil) • Bulrushes (Schoenoplectus spp.)

• Flat sedges** (Cyperus spp., especially chufa) • Hummock sedge (Carex joorii) • Jamaican saw grass** (Cladium mariscus) • Spike sedges* (Eleocharis spp., especially dwarf spike sedge) FORB SEEDS • Devil’s beggar-ticks (Bidens frondosa) • Pigweeds (Amaranthus spp.)

• Smartweeds (Polygonum spp.)

WOODY PLANT SEEDS OR FRUITS • Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) • Grapes (Vitis spp.)

• Hawthorns (Crataegus spp.)

• Oaks**** (Quercus spp.)

• Sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua) ANIMALS • Amphipods (Amphipoda) • Bivalves (Bivalvia) • Crayfishes (Decapoda) • Insects* (Insecta) • Seed shrimp (Ostracoda) • Snails** (Gastropoda) • Water fleas (Cladocera)

Official Corporate Conservation Partner of TWA

THANK YOU CAPITAL FARM CREDIT

FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT!

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BETTER TOGETHER

The human population in Texas is exploding, which makes the ethic of private land ownership even more important now than when the Texas Agricultural Land Trust was established in 2007. Whether those working lands produce livestock, wildlife or both and more, keeping working lands working is critical to the future of the Lone Star State.

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BETTER TOGETHER Article by LORIE A. WOODWARD Photos courtesy of USDA

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n the face of explosive population growth and increasing land fragmentation, private landowners need access to every available conservation tool to keep their farms, ranches and forests open and working.

“Without working lands, Texas, which is 95 percent privately owned, would have almost no wildlife habitat,” said Justin Dreibelbis, CEO of the Texas Wildlife Association (TWA). “Without habitat, Texas would have no wildlife. Of course, we wouldn’t have food, fiber, clean air or water, carbon sequestration or a host of other life-sustaining ecological processes either.”

These realizations prompted TWA, along with Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and Texas Farm Bureau, to cofound the Texas Agricultural Land Trust (TALT) in 2007.

“Sometimes you just need a little help from your like-minded friends,” Dreibelbis said.

Representatives from these three groups and other stakeholders, along with long-time TWA member and land advocate Blair Fitzsimons, who became TALT’s founding CEO, created a unique land trust. Unlike many land trusts dedicated to conserving picturesque places or land in a specific area, TALT was formed “by farmers and ranchers for farmers and ranchers—and hunters too” to keep working lands open and productive.

“The founders were wise enough to know that TALT couldn’t be perceived as a land trust for farmers or ranchers or wildlife managers, but it had to be seen as a land trust for everyone who worked the land, understood its challenges and wanted to conserve working land as their legacy not only for their families, but for Texas,” Dreibelbis said.

Land trusts exist to conserve land and water resources in partnership with private landowners or other entities by holding conservation easements. Conservation easements are perpetual restrictions that prohibit development and commercial non-agricultural uses, while allowing agricultural producers and wildlife managers to continue doing what they do, whether it is grazing, row crop farming or hunting.

“Everyone understood that this new land trust couldn’t be an add-on to any organization’s existing mission,” Dreibelbis said. “TALT had to be a strong, standalone organization that could partner with landowners and hold conservation easements in perpetuity.

Forever is a long time.”

REWIND At the time of TALT’s founding, many in the landowning community viewed conservation easements with suspicion.

The memory of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s ill-conceived attempt in the mid-1990s to name portions of 33 Texas counties in the Hill Country and Central Texas as critical habitat for the goldencheeked warbler and black-capped vireo still loomed large in landowners’ minds and rankled.

“During the ‘bird wars,’ it appeared as if a ‘coalition’ of environmental groups and land trusts were going to ‘save’ the endangered species by permanently wresting control away from private landowners either by taking it or purchasing it at fire sale prices from landowners who found themselves in a financial fix,” said retired TWA CEO David K. Langford, who was heavily involved in TALT’s founding. “Their tool of choice was a conservation easement.

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BETTER TOGETHER

Their goal, as least as it was perceived, was to manage natural resources by removing virtually all human activity.”

In the beginning, Langford was firmly in the anti-conservation easement camp. Thanks to a series of events, he—and others like him—became converts.

First, after one of Texas’ periodic oil and gas industry busts, state leaders decided to diversify the state’s economic base.

They made it clear that Texas was open for business, especially technology, and touted the state’s lack of an income tax and business-friendly regulatory environment. Businesses responded.

As a result, Texas entered an unprecedented growth period. In 1990, population was almost 17 million. By 2005, it had surged to 22.8 million.

In rural counties where developments sprang up, the growth was initially heralded as a boon, but it came with a hidden cost.

As studies conducted by the American Farmland Trust between 1900 and 2000 revealed, while new residents brought new tax dollars, they also required more services.

According to the American Farmland Trust studies, the cost of providing those public services far exceeded the amount of

tax revenue provided by residential taxpayers. In comparison, agricultural and open space land, even with lower tax valuations, generated more tax money than they required in public service costs.

At that time, American Farmland Trust conducted a Cost of Community Services survey in Bexar County. In the early 2000s, Bexar County still had rural areas even though San Antonio was already America’s ninth largest city.

In Bexar County’s case, researchers found the county’s agricultural and open space land generated nearly six times as much revenue as the county spent on those lands in services.

The American Farmland Trust reported that for every dollar agricultural and open space land generated in taxes, the county spent only 18 cents to provide those lands with services.

Residential development on the other hand, required $1.15 in services for every dollar it contributed from property taxes, sales taxes and other revenues.

The results were similar for studies in Hays and Bandera counties as well as the 110 other counties surveyed across the nation. Although the results were surprising, they made sense.

Private land ownership is not only a way of life in Texas, it is an essential part in keeping the wild in wildlife. The ecosystem services that working lands provide to Texas, both culturally and environmentally, cannot be underestimated.

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BETTER TOGETHER

“A single family on 100 acres requires fewer services than 100 families on 100 acres because cows don’t go to school, songbirds don’t call 9-1-1, and crops don’t require the ‘jaws of life’ in the wake of a Saturday night smash up on the freeway,” Langford said.

Second, Fitzsimons and Langford attended a Partnership of Rangeland Trusts meeting in Billings, Montana in 2005. For the first time, they encountered land trust proponents who understood agriculture from a first-hand perspective. These people, who operated in the American West amid federal lands and those attendant challenges, were forming land trusts to conserve their land, their legacy and way of life.

During that meeting a paradigm shift occurred. Fitzsimons and Langford realized that their problem with conservation easements wasn’t with the legal document itself, but with their perception of how it was being used.

“As we came to see, a conservation easement is a tool like any other, so the way it’s used determines whether it’s detrimental or beneficial,” Langford said.

As they flew back to Texas, which by this time was losing agriculture land faster than any other state in the nation, they decided an ag-oriented land trust might just work at home. Soon after, the duo reached out to representatives from Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers and Texas Farm Bureau and began identifying common ground.

“We shared a passion for helping families perpetuate their legacies, codify their love of the land and protect it forever,” said Fitzsimons, who served as TALT’s CEO until June 2020 when she retired.

“Everyone involved was willing to do what was hard because we all knew it was right. It took a lot of people with a lot of grit.”

FAST FORWARD In just 15 years, TALT has become Texas’ largest home-grown land trust and one of the largest in the nation. By partnering with 43 families across the state, TALT has protected more than 269,000 acres with the potential to double that amount in years to come.

TALT’s conservation easements protect lots of open space but their success is not measured merely by acres. With easements on nine of the 10 ecoregions across the state, they also value diversity in the land they help to conserve. Each space is unique and protects not only land but family legacies, too. At present, it is estimated that the protected acreage helped net Texas 218,890 acre feet of water, enough to supply the state of Texas with drinking water for 13 years.

“Our value as an organization, like the value of the state’s land stewards, extends far beyond the fence lines,” TALT CEO Chad Ellis said. “Our efforts serve as a safeguard against encroaching pavement and as a beacon for conservation progress.”

Concerted conservation efforts are crucial. Texas hasn’t stopped growing. Since 1997, the state’s population has increased by 9.3 million people and is now home to 30.3 million people.

An estimated 1,800 people move to Texas each day, in turn increasing demand for natural resources.

At the same time, Texas is losing about 640 acres of working land each day, a rate still outpacing any other state. In fact, the

American Farmland Trust has identified Texas’ agricultural land as the most threatened in the country.

“How each of us helps save Texas’ wide open spaces and precious natural resources depends on our own personal relationship with the land,” Fitzsimons said. “Each of us has to examine our relationship with the land and ask ourselves how we can get involved in vital efforts to conserve it.”

While the relationship to land is personal, the commitment to conservation binds organizations. According to TALT’s bylaws, its board of directors is made up of five representatives from each of its co-founding organizations as well as five landowners who have conservation easements, and three board members at large. Several TALT staff members serve on TWA’s board of directors not by policy, but by choice. The interwoven strands make both organizations stronger.

For instance, consider leaders like Steve C. Lewis, who served as TALT’s first board chair and is a past co-chair of its campaign to endow the Forever Texas Fund, as well as a former president of both TWA and the TWA Foundation. Lewis is a rancher, banker and philanthropist. He, and others like him, bring a front lines perspective to both organizations.

“I appreciate the value and need for open space land in Texas,” Lewis said. “Being able to drive down a country road and see cattle grazing on open land is important to me—and I want my grandchildren and great grandchildren to be able to see them, too.

“The government, state or federal, can’t—and shouldn’t— own much. A conservation easement allows landowners to voluntarily conserve their land while continuing to manage it in a way that they see fit. By keeping the land open and productive, these stewards are benefiting the public at their own expense.”

Of course, to keep producing public benefits on private lands, landowners need a wide variety of tools in their kits. While conservation easements are now tried-and-true, ecosystem services are now next generation conservation tools. TALT is on the leading edge of this emerging marketplace, which seeks to place a financial value on natural resources such as water and ecological processes which include carbon sequestration.

“We need to identify and develop other income streams that allow landowners to keep their working lands intact,” Ellis said.

“Conservation carries a price tag. Developing markets for ecosystem services makes the public important partners in progress.”

TWA and TALT know the power of partnerships. The organizations combined forces to host “The Wild West of Ecosystem Services,” a daylong seminar at the 2022 TWA convention during TWA’s Private Lands Summit. Through the collaboration, the groups leveraged their assets and expertise to guide landowners through the new frontier.

“When it comes to conservation, Texas is better forever when we all work together,” Dreibelbis said.

Editor’ Note—This article is reprinted with permission from the Summer 2022 issue of Texas LAND magazine. For more information about TALT, see www.txaglandtrust.org.

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Management practices like prescribed fire are a scientifically sound and proven way to improve wildlife habitat. However, as more and more people move to once-rural parts of Texas, what is considered good by those in the know could be considered a nuisance by others. That’s why all 50 states have Right to Farm protections. Photo courtesy of USDA

TEXAS RIGHT TO FARM STATUTE Article by TIFFANY DOWELL LASHMET, J.D.

Editor’s Note – As of September 1, 2023, significant changes become reality for the Texas Right to Farm statute. The Texas Legislature passed, and Governor Abbott signed, HB 1750, HB 2308 and HB 2947, each revising the statute offering important protections to Texas rural landowners, lessees, and agricultural operators, including those involved in wildlife management.

The statute has one final hurdle—the November 7 general election. This issue of “Texas Wildlife” was printed prior to that date. But since TWA was one of the strong supporters of the legislation, the editors thought this update was timely.

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s Texas’ population continues to increase and more and more people are moving into rural areas, it is important for all producers to be aware of the protections of the Right to Farm statute, and to understand how it might apply if they face a lawsuit.

BACKGROUND One real concern for farmers across the country, especially those whose operations are located where houses are moving into traditionally more rural areas, is the threat of nuisance lawsuits. To succeed on a nuisance claim, a plaintiff must show

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the defendant substantially interfered with the plaintiff’s use and enjoyment of his or her own property.

Frequently, nuisance claims against agricultural operations involve complaints about dust, odors, flies, or noise. These types of lawsuits have been filed across the country, including here in Texas. Given the threat of litigation, attorney’s fees, and the potential of facing an injunction shutting down an agricultural operation if successful, this is a serious issue for all agricultural producers.

Recognizing these types of lawsuits had the potential to harm American agriculture, legislatures in all 50 states passed Right to Farm statutes which provide an affirmative defense to an agricultural operation facing a nuisance lawsuit. This means if an agricultural operation is sued for nuisance, it may raise the Right to Farm defense, and so long as the operation is able to meet the requirements of the state’s Right to Farm Act, the lawsuit will be dismissed. The Texas Right to Farm Act was passed in 1981 with the express purpose to “conserve, protect, and encourage the development and improvement of Texas’ agricultural land for the production of food and agricultural products.”

Cases where this defense has been utilized in Texas have involved claims related to manure runoff from a dairy; odor, flies, noise, and lights at a sheep feedlot; and odors from manure application.

The Texas Right to Farm Act can really be divided into three sections: (1) protection from lawsuits by other persons/ entities; (2) protection from regulations prohibiting improvements; and (3) protection from other local regulations.

PROTECTION FROM LAWSUITS

BY OTHER PERSONS/ENTITIES The Texas Right to Farm statute is an important protection for agricultural operations facing lawsuits.

Required Elements To successfully prove the Right to Farm defense applies, a plaintiff must show two key elements: (1) there is an agricultural operation; (2) it has been in operation substantially unchanged for a year or more prior to the date of the lawsuit.

When people think of ranching and Texas, cattle is usually the first thing to come to mind. And rightfully so. But agriculture in the Lone Star State is remarkably diverse and includes wildlife management.

Agricultural Operations The Texas Right to Farm Act applies to all “agricultural operations,” which are defined by statute to include cultivating the soil; producing crops or growing vegetation for human food, animal feed, livestock forage, forage for wildlife management, planting seed, or fiber; floriculture; viticulture; horticulture; silviculture; wildlife management; raising or keeping livestock or poultry, including veterinary services; and planting cover crops or leaving land idle for the purpose of participating in any governmental program or normal crop or livestock rotation procedure. Texas courts have also found grain handling facilities to be considered an agricultural operation under this Act. Timing Requirement The Right to Farm Act may only be used as a defense if the operation has been in operation substantially unchanged for a year or more prior to the lawsuit being filed. If, however, an operation does undergo a “substantial change,” then it must operate for at least a year before being able to qualify for the Right to Farm’s protections. The operation’s established date of operation is the date on which an agricultural operation commenced agricultural operations. A “substantial change” is defined as “a material alteration to the operation or type of production at an ag-

ricultural operation that is substantially inconsistent with the operational practices since the established date of operation.”

It remains to be seen how courts may interpret and apply these provisions and what may constitute a substantial change.

Types of Claims Affected Initially, the Texas Right to Farm statute stated it was a defense only to nuisance suits. In 2023, the Texas Legislature amended the statute to broaden the scope of its protection beyond nuisance suits to also include “any other action to restrain an agricultural operation.” For example, if a neighbor brought a trespass suit, the statute would now expressly be an available defense to that claim.

Burden of Proof Assuming a plaintiff does file a lawsuit against an agricultural operation that is not prohibited by the Right to Farm Act, they still face an increased burden of proof.

As of September 1, 2023, the Texas Right to Farm Act provides that a person who brings a nuisance action or other action to restrain an agricultural operation that is not prohibited by the Right to Farm Act must establish each element by clear and convincing evidence. This is higher (meaning more difficult for a plaintiff to prove) than the typical preponderance of the evidence standard applicable in most civil cases.

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Texas is 95 percent privately owned and as more and more people move to the state who are unfamiliar with Texas culture, the importance of programs like TWA’s Texas Youth Hunting Program become intensified. Because of the revised Texas Right to Farm statute that voters considered on November 7, wildlife management activities are protected from nuisance lawsuits. Photo courtesy of TYHP

Exceptions to Limitations/Applicability The Texas Right to Farm Act is not unlimited. The statute expressly states it does not serve to protect an agricultural operation which is conducted in violation of federal, state, or local law.

Attorney Fee Provision Generally, in the American justice system, each party pays for his or her own attorney, regardless of the outcome of the case.

This can be modified by contract or by statute that allows for a successful party to recover attorney’s fees. Under the Texas Right to Farm Act, if a plaintiff brings suit against an agricultural operation that existed more than one year prior to the date of the lawsuit or the prohibition on bringing such actions, an agricultural operation is entitled to recover reasonable attorney fees and costs related to defending the action.

AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENTS The Texas Right to Farm statute also prohibits limitations on certain agricultural improvements as well. The statute provides that an owner, lessee, or occupier of agricultural land is not liable to the state, a governmental unit, or the owner, lessee, or occupant of other agricultural land for the construction or maintenance on the land of an agricultural improvement if

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such construction or maintenance is not expressly prohibited by statute at the time the improvement was constructed.

A couple of key definitions explain the scope of this provision.

First, “agricultural land” includes any land the use of which qualifies for special use tax valuation (agricultural use) under Chapter 23, Subchapter C of the Texas Tax Code and any other land on which agricultural operations may exist or take place.

Second, “agricultural improvements” are defined to include pens, barns, corrals, fences, arenas, and other improvements designed for sheltering, restriction, or feeding of animals or aquatic life, storage of produce or feed, or storage or maintenance of implements used for management functions or equipment necessary to carry out agricultural operations.

Importantly, this provision of the statute does not prohibit the enforcement of state or federal statutes.

EFFECT OF GOVERNMENTAL REQUIREMENTS Lastly, the Right to Farm Act places limitations on when local governments may place restrictions on agricultural operations.

Political Subdivisions Other Than a City For political subdivisions other than a city, the rule is relatively straightforward. A requirement applies to an agricul-

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tural operation that was established after the effective date of the requirement but does not apply to an agricultural operation that was established before the effective date of the requirement. Further, a governmental requirement applies to an agricultural operation if it was in effect prior to this statutory chapter being passed in 1981.

Cities For cities, the requirements are much more complex. A city may not apply to any agricultural operation beyond its own corporate bounds. For agricultural operations located within the bounds of a city, much more stringent limitations apply.

A city may not impose a governmental requirement on an agricultural operation located within its bounds unless there is clear and convincing evidence that the purposes of the requirement may not be addressed through less restrictive means and the requirement is necessary to protect persons who reside in the immediate vicinity or persons on public property in the immediate vicinity of the agricultural operation from imminent danger of: explosion; flooding; infestation of vermin or insects; physical injury; spread of an identified contagious disease directly attributable to the ag operation; removal of lateral or subjacent support; identified source of contamination of water supplies; radiation; improper storage of toxic materials; crops or vegetation causing traffic hazards; or discharge of firearms in violation of the law.

The city must pass a resolution based on a mandatory report that the requirement is necessary to protect public health. The report must be prepared by the city health officer or a consultant and contain the following: (1) identification of health hazards related to the agricultural operation; (2) determination of the necessity of the regulation and the manner in which the agricultural operation should be regulated; and (3) determination of the regulation will restrict or prohibit a generally accepted agricultural practice identified by a manual prepared by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. If the report does recommend a regulation that will

restrict the use of a generally accepted agricultural practice that the manual indicates does not pose a threat to public health, the report must explain why this recommendation is made.

Lastly, the Right to Farm Act lists certain limitations on specific types of laws that cities may not impose. First, a city may not prohibit the use of a generally accepted agricultural practice listed in the manual prepared by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service unless each of the steps discussed above related to findings and a health official report are followed.

Second, a city may not restrict the growing or harvesting of vegetation for animal feed, livestock forage, or forage for wildlife management, except that the city may impose a maximum vegetation height that applies to agricultural operations only if the maximum height is at least 12 inches and the requirement only applies to portions of the agricultural operation located less than 10 feet from a

property boundary adjacent to a public sidewalk, street, highway, or property that is owned by another person and contains an inhabited structure.

Third, a city may not prohibit the use of pesticides or other measures to control vermin or disease-bearing insects to the extent necessary to prevent an infestation. Fourth, a city may not require an agricultural operation be designated for agricultural use, open space, or wildlife management property tax valuation. Finally, a city may not impose a restraint of dog requirement on agricultural operations with dogs used to protect livestock on property controlled by the property owner while the dog is being used for the purpose of protecting livestock.

For more information and to read the text of the Texas Right to Farm statute, go to https://agrilife.org/texasaglaw/ files/2023/07/textof-the-Texas-Right-toFarm-Statute-asof-September-1.pdf

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TEXAS WILDLIFE

OUTDOOR TRADITIONS

Thanking My Lucky Stars Article by SALLIE LEWIS SCHNEIDER Photo by RYAN PRICE

A monthly event that delights epicureans is a nine-course al fresco tasting meal under a new full moon at Ronin Farm & Restaurant in Bryan, Texas.

A

s the holiday season approaches, I am taking stock and giving thanks for all the joy this year has brought. Between sunny days on the Texas Gulf Coast, family gatherings in the Bahamas and Jamaica, and a sacred spring morning at my wedding in Fredericksburg, I feel immensely blessed.

One of my favorite moments from 2023 took place this summer over a family weekend in the Hill Country. On the evening of August 12, my mom, dad,

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husband, and I turned off all the lights in the house, dragged some chairs onto the front lawn, and watched starry eyed as the Perseid Meteor Shower lit up the night sky.

Today, I continue to think about that magical evening and the many others over the years when I felt the same sense of awe. Some of my earliest recollections go back to my grandparents’ country home in Menard.

As a child, I remember cooking s’mores with my cousins around an old stone firepit

NOVEMBER 2023

while observing the moon and planets.

Far away from the city lights, the sky was darker and the constellations clearer than they were back home. Most importantly, we felt connected to something greater than ourselves.

Years later, I watched the Southern Cross sparkle on safari in Eastern Africa and admired the brilliant celestial views while exploring the Galápagos Islands. One summer, I sailed around northeastern Sardinia aboard a 40foot catamaran called Efram. Come nighttime, I’d lay awake with the glass hatch over my bed propped ajar, and feel the thick, glimmering sky wrap over me like a blanket.

No matter where you are or what your stargazing perch looks like, the night sky is something everyone can appreciate.

The clustered constellations may be brighter and more concentrated in the absence of light pollution, but they are there, nevertheless. All we need to do is look up.

This month, I’m excited to do just that at Ronin Farm & Restaurant. Brian and Amanda Light of Bryan, Texas, host their signature nine-course tasting dinners to celebrate each month’s full moon. Located in a lush forest, people from across the United States come to break bread beneath the stars and feast on an ever-changing menu reflecting the season’s harvest.

I can’t think of a better way to kick off this new month and celebrate the approaching Thanksgiving season. And so, in a spirit of gratitude, I’m wishing you all a happy and joyous holiday, and thanking my lucky stars for this treasured and twinkling gift of life.

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