Author: Buck Manager

TPWD Rolls Out LMA

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) announced that it will be offering a new deer permit program in 2017, Land Management Assistance. The program will be the result of merging a couple of deer permit programs (MLDP+LAMPS) into two options, resulting in the Harvest Option and the Conservation Option.

Under the new deer permit program, participating landowners selecting the Harvest Option will receive automated deer harvest recommendations, tag issuance, and general correspondence about wildlife and habitat management for their property. No site specific deer population/survey data will be required under the Harvest Option, which also means property owners will not receive site specific harvest recommendations from a TPWD biologist.

The Conservation Option is similar in scope to the old Level 3 MLDP, and comes with customized technical guidance and harvest recommendations from TPWD, requiring at least 3 approved habitat management practices be implemented each year on a participating property.

Deer Management in Texas

TPWD currently issues about 330,000 deer tags each year through the MLDP Program. “Phenomenal growth in the MLD program over the last 20 years has presented significant challenges for staff to meet the increasing number of requests from landowners for technical assistance and simply administer the program,” explained Alan Cain, TPWD white-tailed deer program leader.

Effective this year, participants will be able to print their own MLDP tags, which will eliminate issues with tags lost in the mail, not arriving on time, or bad address, and provide greater convenience and flexibility to participants.

The system retooling won’t sacrifice the core mission of the program, Cain reassured, rather will enable limited wildlife biologist staff to focus private lands technical guidance efforts on site-specific wildlife population and habitat management recommendations.

Land Management Assistance Continued

“Our primary goal is to continue developing long-term relationships with private landowners, engage and educate them about the importance of management in promoting healthy habitats and wildlife populations, and ultimately put more resource conservation on the ground,” said Cain.

Despite the state’s economic growth, there is little doubt that white-tailed deer hunting and management will continue to be extremely popular in Texas. It will be interesting to hear how changes impact current program participants. Additional information and details about the deer management permit program is available online at TPWD.

Texas: CWD Positive

Unfortunately, white-tailed deer hunting, management and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) now go hand-in-hand in Texas. It’s something that wildlife officials, hunters and deer herds are dealing with across the country. Texas and many states have been sampling hunter-harvested deer to find out more about where the deadly disease is and is not. The end game is far from unknown.

CWD Sampling in Texas

The 2016-17 collection year resulted in a couple of unwanted firsts for CWD in Texas, including detections in a free-ranging whitetail and a free-ranging elk. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) surpassed its statewide goal of 6,735 CWD samples, collecting 9,830 from hunter harvested and road kill deer, and other susceptible cervid species, between March 1, 2016 and Feb. 28, 2017.

Sampling by DMUs

Sampling objectives were established by TPWD wildlife biologists based on deer densities within each of the 41 Deer Management Units (DMU) in Texas and other factors to establish sufficient confidence of detection if CWD were present within those localized populations.

TPWD wildlife staff collected CWD samples from a variety of locations including: road kill deer, deer processors, private ranches, wildlife management areas and state parks, and voluntary and mandatory hunter harvest check stations. Of the 9,830 samples collected, 23 percent were road kill. Exotic species that have been sampled include axis deer, fallow deer, red stag, sika, and elk; although there is no evidence that axis and fallow deer are susceptible to this disease.

Details about each CWD detection in Texas are available online. Just click on the image below to find out more.

Texas’ CWD First

Sometimes it’s good to have firsts—sometimes it’s not. Among the CWD positives detected in Texas this past season, here are some notable firsts:

• The first confirmed case of CWD in a free-ranging Texas whitetail was detected in a hunter harvested 1 1/2 –year-old buck submitted for sampling within the Surveillance Zone 3 located in portions of Medina, Uvalde, and Bandera counties.
• The first known free-ranging elk in Texas to test positive for CWD, harvested by a hunter in Dallam County.
• The first known case of a captive-raised white-tailed deer in Texas that live tested “not detected” for CWD, but after being harvested by a hunter on a release site three months later tested positive for the disease.

To date, Texas has recorded 49 confirmed cases of CWD, of which 26 were discovered in captive deer breeding pens, 5 were hunter harvested on breeder deer release sites, 16 were free-ranging mule deer, 1 was a free-ranging elk, and 1 was a free-ranging white-tailed deer.

CWD in West Texas

“The good news is so far our sampling in the Tran-Pecos has only detected CWD in the Hueco Mountains area,” said Dr. Bob Dittmar, TPWD wildlife veterinarian. “Since 2012, the disease has been found in 13 mule deer out of 117 tested in the Hueco Mountains area for an 11 percent prevalence rate.”

Dittmar also expressed guarded confidence that CWD has not spread outside the Hueco Mountains area based on increased sampling in the surrounding ranges.

“The mandatory sampling in the Trans-Pecos SZ helped get an increase in sampling from the Delaware Mountains this year and while we have accumulated a decent number of samples around the Guadalupe Mountains, both remain areas of concern and we still need some more sampling out there.” he noted.

CWD in Central Texas

The state’s wildlife disease management response focuses on an early detection and containment strategy designed to limit the spread of CWD from the affected area and better understand the distribution and prevalence of the disease.

The detection of CWD in a free-ranging whitetail in Medina County this season resulted from enhanced voluntary testing of hunter harvested deer, allowing TPWD to initiate proactive measures aimed at containment rather than reactive steps targeting control.

“The more effective we are at containing this disease within a limited geographic area, the better it will be for our wildlife resources and all those who enjoy them,” Dittmar said. “We want to thank the Texas hunting community for its strong support of our management efforts; we cannot combat the spread of CWD without it.”

A detailed summary of CWD sampling for 016-17 season is available for review online.

Fences in Texas

Whether you use your land for livestock grazing , white-tailed deer management or both, it’s a good idea to have a handle on Texas’ fencing laws. We’ve all heard the saying, “good fences make for good neighbors,” but even good folks with pretty good fences can get sideways when it comes to disputes over unforeseen situations, property lines and “extra” livestock.

Have you ever wondered if a landowner is liable if his livestock get out and are hit on the road? Can a landowner make a neighbor chip in and and pay for repairs to a shared boundary fence? What should a property owner do when someone else’s cattle are on their land? Or what can I do about my neighbor’s tree limbs hanging over the fence and onto my property?

Texas Fence Law Answered

There will come a time for every Texas landowner when having some general knowledge about fencing laws will come in handy. Fortunately, a new publication titled Five Strands: A Landowner’s Guide to Fence Law in Texas is now available to help landowners make sense of some of the more common issues property owners face across the Lone Star State.

The best thing—this handbook was written in terms that normal people can understand. It is designed as a resource that can be thrown on the dash of a pick up along with a ranchers’ other important documents. This publication provides answers to common questions related to fence law that come up frequently for Texas landowners and livestock producers.

Below are a several examples from the handbook:

My neighbor’s cattle are on my land. How do I remove them?

The answer depends on whether this situation occurs in an open-range county or in one that has passed a stock law making it a closed range.

Lessee Liability?

Many Texas livestock producers lease the land they they run their livestock on. This presents a question of who is responsible for fencing the land the livestock run on–the landowner or the lessee? Absent an agreement allocating responsibility between the landowner and the lessee, these laws could apply to both the landowner and the lessee who runs the livestock on a ranch.

How do the adequate fence standards of the Agriculture Code apply?

The Texas Agriculture Code establishes the requirements for a “sufficient fence;” however, these fencing standards apply only in open-range counties where fences are meant to keep livestock “out” rather than “in.”17 These sufficient fence standards do not apply in a closed-range county, nor can they be used to determine negligence or liability in a roadway accident situation.

Clearing Brush to Build a Fence on a Boundary Line

Sometimes a landowner building a fence along a boundary line must clear brush on both his or her own property and the neighbor’s property. If this is necessary, the landowner should always seek permission from the neighbor before entering his or her property and before any brush management takes place.

Without such permission, entering a neighbor’s property and removing the brush could be considered trespassing and subject the acting landowner to damages. It is always better to ask for permission ahead of time. If permission is denied, the landowner may have to back the fence up on his or her property.

Cutting Down a Tree Hanging over a Property Line

Assume that a tree grows on the neighbor’s property, but the limbs and branches overhang another’s land. What rights do the parties have in that situation? In Texas, the location of the trunk of the tree determines who owns it, even if the roots or branches grow onto an adjoining neighbor’s land. A landowner has the right to trim or cut off the limbs or branches of boundary trees or brush that reach onto his or her property, as long as no damage to the other adjoining landowner occurs.

However, the limbs or branches can be cut back only to the property line. The tree’s owner is responsible for any damages caused to the adjacent owner from falling branches or roots. It is in the best interest of the tree’s owner to control the growth of the tree so it does not create a source of potential damage to the neighboring landowner.