The Private Lands Program (PLP) offers a variety of services to help private landowners achieve their wildlife management objectives. Request a site visit by clicking the link below, or call (601) 432-2199 during normal business hours.
As a landowner or leaseholder, you play a critical role in the future of Mississippi's wildlife resources. The Private Lands Program can help you meet your wildlife management goals and potentially save time and money. Our qualified Wildlife Biologists offer free on-site evaluations and recommendations for a variety of wildlife management needs.
Schedule a site visit today and let us help you become the manager our wildlife resources need.
Private Lands Biologists are trained to evaluate properties and work with landowners and leaseholders to help meet their wildlife management goals. Some examples of services the PLP provides include:
Private Lands Biologists routinely conduct site visits with individual landowners or lease holders to evaluate their property, assess habitat conditions, and provide support in making management decisions. Contact your regional Private Lands Biologist to set up a site visit.
It is often helpful to prepare for your site visit ahead of time so that you can be efficient and organized while in the field. Some important information to have prepared might include the following:
Following most site visits, Private Lands Biologists will provide a brief written summary of what was discussed with some preliminary recommendations. In some instances, biologists and landowners may desire to develop a detailed management plan.
Private Lands Biologists often provide technical guidance for specific habitat management practices, including calibration of no-till seed drills, conventional seeding equipment, pesticide sprayers, prescribed burning, tree and shrub planting, management of moist-soil vegetation, and establishment of supplemental food plantings.
Although the MDWFP does not directly subsidize any habitat management practices on private lands, Private Lands Biologists often liaise between landowners and multiple organizations to locate sources of funding to help with the costs of managing habitat.
Some common examples of cost-share programs include those provided by the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Fire on the Forty, Forest Resources Development Program, and the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. For more information about cost share programs, contact your regional Private Lands Biologist or the District Conservationist for NRCS in your county.
Private Lands Biologists commonly conduct public presentations at wildlife and forestry field days and workshops as well as public events where wildlife management information is relevant. Additionally, Private Lands Biologists communicate wildlife management information by writing popular articles and technical publications (see the Literature section below), often in collaboration with partners.
For more information about wildlife management or to locate a potential speaker for your wildlife management-related event, contact your regional Private Lands Biologist.
In some instances, landowners and Private Lands Biologists may decide it is appropriate to develop a habitat management plan for a specific property during a set period of time, usually five to ten years. Management plans often include a clearly defined list of goals and objectives, detailed site evaluation, and specific prescriptions for management practices with a timeline for completion and maps detailing arrangement of practices. Management plans are labor intensive and should only be perused in instances where the long-term goals and objectives of the property are completely clear and unlikely to change significantly over the course of the plan.
Where forest management is a key component, Private Lands Biologists often recommend that landowners contact a Registered Forester, including a private forestry consultant or a Service Forester with the Mississippi Forestry Commission, for more information, especially where timber revenue is a consideration.
The Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP) is a comprehensive deer management program consisting of data collection and cooperator education. Using this data, the MDWFP tries to put the landowner/cooperator in a better position to manage their lands for a healthy deer herd while maintaining habitat integrity.
Cooperators set their own deer management goals and collect biological information on harvested deer. In turn, wildlife biologists from the MDWFP, or other DMAP-approved biologists, analyze the data and provide managers with the facts necessary to make informed management decisions. The program is continuously interactive and open for modification. Data from the program are used to develop site-specific harvest recommendations and have prompted numerous research projects to help better understand deer biology.
For information about managing a pond on your property, see Pond Assistance.