I use the wildlife exemption. When it became available, I promptly sold the cows and quit worrying about keeping up my fences. I have to file a yearly report of my activities. There are 7 things that I can do but only have to select and report on 3. I provide a lot of pictures and do about a 4+ page report including pics. I like to provide pics of grandkids fishing and wandering around. Actually, I question whether they even read it.
When it first became available, you could only use wildlife if you were coming from grazing(cows, sheep, goats, etc.). Check with the County about this part. The Counties don't like this one because they are more attuned to ranching and they really enjoy collecting taxes.
The ones I do/report are:
1. Provide cover for small animals. Those are brush piles from cutting firewood.
2. Provide water for wildlife. My ponds and occasional water holes when it actually rains. I take pics of ponds and print them.
3. Do a census of deer sightings. I count print pics from game cams. This year has been challenging due to a massive acorn drop when deer ignored corn feeders. But, I can do that from tracks. I actually say in the report that I can't tell one deer track from another.
Kill predators is also available. I don't do that because I'm not mad at coyotes. Heck, they have to eat and, I believe that they take 80+ of the fawns born. That's just Mama Nature at work and she can be a mean bitch.
Another is provide supplemental feed for wildlife. Plant some wheat or maybe a protein feeder or 2. I have heard that corn feeders for deer hunting don't work. I'll probably plant a couple of wheat patches this year if it rains enough to get a crop. But I do provide pics of us on tractors plowing and/or working the land. I say in the report that due to either drought or beetles, the crop was a failure but I tried. I take pics of wheat seed that I plant(or not). I buy some bags of protein feed and take pics of the bags. It's expensive but without an exemption of some kind, taxes would be ruinous.
BTW, we have a lot of hogs and they are an invasive species. Not sure what their status is regarding wildlife exemptions but I include pics of hogs killed.
There are a couple more.
Last edited by Dave Davidson1; 02/20/20 06:04 AM.
