To qualify for a Texas wildlife management tax exemption, your land must already be in agricultural or timber appraisal by the county tax appraiser.
To apply, you create a wildlife management plan for your property. It’s not a complex plan as you are basically outlining for the appraisal district your practices you will be undertaking towards managing wildlife on your land. There is a list of 7 practices that qualify: you will be confirming that you will undertake 3 practices out of the 7 on an ongoing basis to qualify your land.
Some examples are: supplemental feeding such as corn feeders or planting small patches of wheat or peas for deer, creating a new water source, creating shelters like birdhouses or brush piles and by census counts.
Your management plan can be submitted to the appraisal district on a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wildlife management form. You are not required to consult with TPWD or have them approve your plan.
The appraisal district and chief appraiser will primarily be looking to see that you meet the criteria for a wildlife management exemption status by currently being in agricultural or timber appraisal and that you have completed the form and stated your management practices you intend to undertake for your property.
You may choose to manage for what is considered non-game wildlife like rabbit, squirrel and songbirds. Creating brush piles and box houses for habitat and control of predators (trapping) are good practices that can increase wildlife populations especially on smaller acreage properties. Managing for fish however does not qualify for wildlife management, but may qualify as aquaculture.
When to use Wildlife Management Exemption over an Agricultural Exemption
Since the property tax savings are the same with either exemption, the answer depends on your use of the land. If you primarily feed deer or create habitat for birds as opposed to baling hay or running cattle, you may be already conducting most – or all – of the required practices to qualify for a wildlife management use. Properties that are presently under timber exemption would be natural candidates as little or no hay production or grazing of animals is typically possible. Since the base exemption is agriculture, regardless of whether in a wildlife or timber use, you can always change from wildlife to some other agricultural practice. You can still have cattle or bale grass while under wildlife exemption and in fact managed grazing is often beneficial to maintaining productive wildlife habitat. 
While you want to make sure the type exemption you apply for reflects your actual use of the property, don’t make it a complex process. Unless you are making a intensive change from one type use to the other – say, all cattle grazing to all wildlife management, there is very little reason to make application to change the use exemption. And since all exemptions originate from an agricultural base exemption, there is typically no additional tax savings to be had by switching unless you change your use of the land substantially. If you question whether your new use would be considered a substantial change, you can always informally ask the appraisal district if a new application – and different type exemption – is necessary.
Also, before you change any use status, keep in mind that the uses of your property are not mutually exclusive, so if you are grazing cattle it does not preclude you from planting supplemental crops for deer or adding water features for wildlife.
This article originally posted at http://www.easttexasland.com/texas-wildlife-management-tax-exemption/
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