History of Wildlife Mississippi
In its first full year of operation, Wildlife Mississippi begins an extensive education and outreach program, which now consists of print and electronic material, direct mail, workshops, social media, and one-on-one discussions with private landowners and others. Much of this activity is directed toward landowners interested in implementing better land and water conservation practices.
Wildlife Mississippi works to establish its Wildlife Habitat Seed Program, with its first offering of low-cost seed the following year to private landowners and public agencies for the establishment of food plots for a variety of wildlife. To date, the program has led to the enhancement of approximately 284,000 acres on private lands and public lands.
Wildlife Mississippi establishes a partnership with the Mississippi Land Trust to offer conservation easements to private landowners. Conservation easements assist landowners in protecting lands and waters, wildlife habitat, and scenic areas or historic buildings. They can be tailored to meet specific needs. To date, more than 117,000 acres of conservation easements have been established through this partnership.
Wildlife Mississippi establishes a partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restore longleaf pine forests and savannas, which have declined dramatically due to land clearing, replacement with commercial pines, and other factors. Such habitats are important for Mississippi sandhill cranes, gopher tortoises, and other imperiled species. To date, Wildlife Mississippi and the Service have restored or enhanced approximately 45,000 acres of longleaf pine forests through this partnership.
Wildlife Mississippi begins its Working Wetlands Initiative with public agencies and other conservation organizations to integrate waterfowl management into economically viable agricultural practices. Managing offseason agricultural fields and natural areas as waterfowl habitat offers food for migrating and wintering birds. To date, Wildlife Mississippi and private landowners have enhanced more than 27,478 acres of such habitat.
Wildlife Mississippi works with Congress under the Farm Bill to establish the Grassland Reserve Program, which allows for the restoration and protection of native prairie. To date, Wildlife Mississippi has restored or enhanced more than 15,000 acres of native prairie. The organization also worked with the Farm Service Agency to establish a native prairie restoration practice within the Conservation Reserve Program.
Working with the late U.S. Senator Thad Cochran and U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, Wildlife Mississippi helped create the Holt Collier National Wildlife Refuge, the first refuge named for an African-American, and the Theodore Roosevelt National Wildlife Refuge, the site of President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1902 bear hunt that led to the creation of the teddy bear. Collier was Roosevelt’s hunting guide. Both refuges are in the Mississippi Delta.
Wildlife Mississippi establishes its wetland and stream mitigation program, now called the Mississippi Strategic Wetland Acquisition and Management Program, or Mississippi SWAMP. It provides reasonably price mitigation credits to economic developers and state agencies to compensate for unavoidable impacts to wetlands and streams. Today, Wildlife Mississippi owns and manages more than 19,000 acres of mitigation lands in the state.
Wildlife Mississippi works with the Farm Service Agency and conservation organizations to create continuous sign-ups to restore bottomland hardwood forests under the Conservation Reserve Program. This is important for the historic floodplain of the Lower Mississippi River Valley, where such habitats have been reduced from 24 million acres to 4 million acres. Working with public agencies and other partners, Wildlife Mississippi has helped restore more than 43,000 acres of bottomland hardwoods and wetlands.
Wildlife Mississippi works with the Mississippi Legislature to establish the Mississippi Legislative Sportsmen’s Caucus, now the largest caucus in the state legislature and the largest Legislative Sportsmen’s Caucus in the nation. The caucus serves as an identified group of allies willing to stand up for the rights of sportsmen when pertinent legislation is introduced. Members can be counted on to be proactive in protecting the outdoor heritage important to so many Mississippians.
Wildlife Mississippi works with Congress to further conservation and forestry under the 2008 Farm Bill. The organization helps establish the Emergency Forest Restoration Program, to help private landowners recover from natural disasters; the Endangered Species Recovery Program, to help avoid new species listings and recover listed species; the Healthy Forests Reserve Program, which also promotes the recovery of imperiled species; and a provision to assist landowners in controlling invasive species.
Wildlife Mississippi and several partners begins developing a comprehensive book, Fish and Wildlife Management. A Handbook for Mississippi Landowners. The book, published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2014, was edited by Adam Rohnke of Mississippi State University and James L. Cummins, Wildlife Mississippi’s Executive director. The Dalrymple Family Foundation supported the publication. The book is among a number of publications and handbooks Wildlife Mississippi has produced for landowners.
Wildlife Mississippi constructs the Sky Lake Boardwalk near Belzoni, which extends more than 1,700 feet through one of the world’s largest stands of ancient bald cypress. The project helps advance the cause of wetland conservation and restoration by using the Sky Lake area as an educational tool to showcase the need to protect this forest of international significance.
Wildlife Mississippi works with Yale University and the Walton Family Foundation to develop the Conservation Finance Center website, which has a Decision Support Tool to help landowners make a comparative financial analysis of various land uses. The website, conservationfinancecenter.org, also contains background information on incentive-based conservation programs.
Wildlife Mississippi works with conservation groups and Congress to develop the Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities and Revived Economics of the Gulf Coast States Act, commonly known as the RESTORE Act. The act sets the parameters by which Gulf Coast restoration efforts occur, using fines from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.
Wildlife Mississippi works with the Mississippi River Trust, the Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, with funding from the Walton Family Foundation, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, to develop a large-scale project to restore the active floodplain of the Lower Mississippi River. Landowners begin signing up for reforestation through Wetland Reserve Easements.
Wildlife Mississippi works with Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, and Congress to continue the popular Wetlands Reserve Program. Since 1992, approximately 200,000 acres in Mississippi have been enrolled in the voluntary program, which provides financial and technical assistance to landowners to restore previously cleared, high-risk lands to wetland forests.
Wildlife Mississippi makes conservation funding, particularly for federal agencies, a priority. Funding for natural resource management and conservation, through agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and others, has dropped from 4% of the federal budget in 1982 to less than 1% today.
Wildlife Mississippi partners with the City of Amory, the Dalrymple Family Foundation, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks to develop the Northeast Mississippi Nature Trail. The trail, in Amory, highlights local plant and animal life, Mississippi conservation pioneers and Native American history.
Wildlife Mississippi begins development of 3,000-acre Fannye Cook Natural Area along the Pearl River, in the heart of Jackson Metropolitan area. Much of the site is a wetland and stream mitigation bank for the Mississippi Department of Transportation. Outdoor recreation and conservation education will occur there, too. The site was named for pioneering conservationist Fannye Cook of Mississippi, who was the first director of the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.
Wildlife Mississippi partners with Rayonier, Inc., a global forest company, the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Mississippi Bat Working Group to protect Eucutta Cave in Wayne County. The cave, which is 100 yards deep, is a major winter bat roost with about 50 to 150 southeastern bats and 750 tri-colored bats. In the summer, Eucutta Cave hosts a maternal colony of about 300 southeastern bats.
Wildlife Mississippi begins the Upper Pearl River At-Risk Species and Source Water Protection Project to protect private and tribal riparian forests through conservation easements and agreements. This will help protect native wildlife and water quality in the river and help maintain populations of two at-risk turtles, the federally threatened ringed sawback turtle and the Pearl River map turtle. The project area includes the last remaining portion of unprotected, privately owned land upstream of the state’s largest source of surface water used for drinking, which serves Jackson, Mississippi.
Wildlife Mississippi expands its work to help historically underserved landowners, including African-Americans, enroll in federally funded conservation programs for preserving wetlands, forests and other habitats. Mississippi has the largest percentage of historically underserved landowners of any state. Wildlife Mississippi regularly participates in workshops for such landowners and works with the KKAC Foundation, the Black Landowners Agricultural and Conservation Land Trust and other organizations.
Wildlife Mississippi establishes a partnership with Columbus Air Force Base (CAFB) to contribute to their Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration program. Wildlife Mississippi is acquiring parcels between the Buttahatchie River and the base via purchase or conservation easement. This project is intended to protect the natural state of the Buttahatchie River while decreasing development potential in close proximity to CAFB. This allows CAFB to continue their mission of training troops and being mission ready and helps Wildlife Mississippi continue its work of the Buttahatchie River Initiative to conserve the river and its habitats.
The Mississippi Outdoor Stewardship Trust Fund is established by the Mississippi Legislature. It will support our economy and create jobs without raising taxes by funding forest management, waterfowl improvement, wild hog control and municipal park development, among other projects. State funds help match federal funds to supports projects benefitting Mississippi’s 780,000 sportsmen and women.
Wildlife Mississippi partners with Weyerhaeuser and The Sumner Foundation to protect The Old Cove. The Old Cove, also known as “Mississippi’s Grand Canyon,” is a 300-acre area in west-central Webster County, Mississippi, consisting of deep ravines between high bluffs and ridges. The cove is a sunken area that falls significantly in elevation, nearly 150 feet below the surrounding ridges, creating a canyon like landscape unique to most of Mississippi. The mature hardwoods and rock outcroppings along with seepages and streams create a unique ecosystem that supports a diversity of flora and fauna resembling that of the Appalachian Mountains.
Wildlife Mississippi worked with Congress, especially U.S. Senator Roger Wicker and Congressman Trent Kelly, to create the Forest Conservation Easement Program Act. The purpose of the Act is to create the Forest Conservation Easement Program to keep forest land working through the use of conservation easements that purchase development rights from willing private and tribal landowners to prevent conversion to non-forest uses.
