Big Creek Forestry and Wildlife Consulting LLC

05/31/2026

Future looks bright for this coming seasons longleaf cone production! For those of you who don’t follow the fruiting success of Longleaf pine, cause I you know everyone is so interested in that😂, the past few years have been rough on cone production. Fruiting success means more seedlings at the end of the day equating to more acres being restored. This is great news and will result in more landowners getting the professional and financial support needed. If you haven’t looked into what The Longleaf Alliance is all about, I highly recommend it! It’s a great organization that has the species and landowners needs at the forefront of everything they do.

Hot off the press! The latest USDA Forest Service Longleaf Pine Cone Report shows a promising outlook for 2026 – the best since 2017!

Based on green cone counts this spring, the predicted regional longleaf cone crop for this fall is GOOD with an average of 53.9 cones per tree, an encouraging indicator for both natural regeneration this fall and future nursery seedling production.

While there is hope on the horizon, it is important to remember that cone production varies by site and weather risks remain.

Annual monitoring by the UDSA Forest Service is crucial for continuing longleaf restoration efforts. Having an idea of upcoming cone crops helps longleaf growers plan for seed collection and informs land managers' upcoming activities, like prescribed burning or selective harvesting, to promote recruitment. In 2025, the poor predicted cone crop allowed partners to rally together to ensure sufficient cone collection was possible at a time when longleaf seed inventory was nearly exhausted.

Read the full report >https://longleafalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-REPORT-on-Longleaf-Pine-Cone-Production.pdf

[Photo by USDA Forest Service]

05/30/2026

Got a call from a client the other day to request a consultation to take a look at an area that had been heavily damaged by Hurricane Helene. I had a few questions for the client before my visit and all the client could say was “it’s bad”. It takes a lot for me to say site conditions are truly bad but when I pulled up and laid eyes on the situation described as “it’s bad”, I began to hear the fade in of a famous guitar riff and howl of Axel Rose belting “Welcome to the Jungle”. The best way to explain it was a biomass explosion! It looked like Jack had planted his bean stalk and said to heck with this and threw the rest of his seed collection to the wind. Sweetgum, pines, blackberry growing thicker than my southern draw. You couldn’t see the forest for the trees or the trees for the forest. Landowner pulls up and hesitantly asked me “what you think” as if he was embarrassed it had gotten to this point. All I could say was, “well at least it’s not kudzu”. He just chuckled and said ain’t that the damn truth.
All joking aside, this is the situation a lot of landowners are left with after Mother Nature or human decided to hit the reset button. Now all your left asking yourself is, “how did it get this bad”? It’s actually very easy! Our southeastern forest has the unbelievable ability to rebound quickly from natural and man made disasters. A copious seed bank and jungle like climate allow us to grow biomass at an alarming rate. Without careful intervention, these areas can turn into sanctuaries for invasive species, ecological deserts, and just an all out eye sore. With surgical precision, selective treatments, and a professional who is well versed in forest development, you can turn that ugly duckling of a landscape into a beautiful swan! Here’s something that’s even better, it’s cheap. Real cheap. Like you gotta be kidding me cheap. Not all jobs require $3500/acre in excavator, bulldozer, and slash pile burning cost. Some do. But the vast majority of them do not. Unless you’re looking to convert that acreage to a horse pasture or looking for a place to build your mother-in-law suite, there is truly no need to spend that kind of money. What if I told you that for a fraction of the cost of typical “clearing” we could provide you the look you want, improve wildlife habitat and forest health, and even better, maintain it that way for years at a fraction of the cost clearing and grubbing would cost you! This doesn’t even take into consideration the strain of those hot summer days of pulling a bush hog or riding a mower along with the cost of the fuel to run the equipment. Help me help you and give Big Creek Forestry and Wildlife Consulting a call! I promise we don’t bite but we do save you money!

05/21/2026

*What do you do when the pulpwood industry is on the fritz? You improvise!*

As a forestry and wildlife consulting company, we do everything we can to keep our clients ahead of the curve and with the pulpwood situation being what it is, it makes things a tad bit difficult but not impossible. Bringing in forest product producers who have a spiderweb of networks within the forestry industry which has created new avenues in specific markets. We are hitting home runs daily with our clients when it comes to putting money in their pockets and quality habitat projects to work. If you are a landowner in the area that has anywhere from 25 to 50 acres with timber that has never been thinned, we are wanting to help you! This has been the class of landowner who has been told your tract is to small to cut or timber prices you’ve been quoted are so low you, you just wanna spit! We may have the answer for you! In the right situation and right markets, anything is possible! Call today and let’s get you on the path to sound forest management and improved wildlife habitat!

05/17/2026

Still working with landowners to get Forest back into production and reduce the hazardous fuel loads out across their properties. Two years after Hurricane Helene and we are now seeing the effects of what dried 10,000-hour fuels (fire management jargon for big trees ready to burn) has on our forest. Wildfires in South Georgia are only the tip of the iceberg. As we continue to have numerous days without rain, low humidities, and stiff winds, the risk of wildfire will continue to increase. These large piles of fuels also provide breeding grounds for mice, rats, and insects and in turn attract predators such as snakes. This may be of no concern to the landowner who has those issues miles away but for those who have this problem to deal with right in their backyard, can be very concerning. Snake activity typically increases this time of year as temperatures rise and breeding activity begins to take place. Don’t go through this spring and summer worrying about your kids running around in the backyard or your fur baby getting a little curious and venturing off the beaten path. There are economical and beneficial ways to deal with these fuels and Big Creek Forestry and Wildlife is here to help you! Call us today!

05/16/2026

Started work this morning on a really cool project. Started work with this landowner in 2021 working to enhance the aesthetics and wildlife value of a bottomland hardwood stand located on his property. The prescription was to remove all soft hardwood species such as sweetgum, elm, sycamore and a host of other species to improve the health and development of the predominant oak canopy. We began with a commercial thinning that targeted these species as well as dealt with the midstory with the use of an in woods fuel chipping operation. We complete this activity at the end of 2022 and everything is going great! Then Helene Happened. We lost nearly 45 percent of the dominant tree canopy which initiated the stand regeneration phase and boy did it ever. Goal after thinning was to conduct a pre commercial thinning at year 5-7 after thinning paired with a basal bark treatment if necessary. Scrap that idea. We now are looking at a wall of early successional species along with the regeneration we intended to foster.
Today is the beginning of the new future for this stand. Through careful planning and assessment of restocking of selected crop species in this stand, a targeted prescription for the chemical treatment of undesired species along with a forest mastication treatment (fancy term for mulching) 60 days down the road and then a retreatment of anything that decides to coppice (another fancy term for stump sprouting from root stock) will get this stand to where we need it to begin our replanting efforts. A mixture of seedlings such as species from the white oak and red oak family, walnut, and other high wildlife and economic value species. I’m so looking forward to the future of this stand and the potential for this tract. I will continue to update our followers with our progress through the evolution of this stand. If you or anyone else you know may be interested in a project such as this, give us a call, shoot me a text, send it by passenger pigeon, whatever works for you! Don’t waste another day of being unhappy with where you are in your forestscape journey. Take control today and let’s put you on the path to success!!

03/10/2026

There truly is no piece of property to small. That is what I tell every landowner who ask, “is my place even big enough to fool with managing?” Historical land ownership trends have shown that large parcels are steadily being divided due to development and estate planning. The days of 1000 plus acre contiguous tracts are dwindling and the evolution of the micro tract is growing. Just because you do not own hundreds of acres, doesn’t mean you can’t provide the same ecological benefits that a tract of that size does. As a matter of fact, you quit possibly could provide greater foraging and cover for wildlife species than some of those large tracts do! Take my own property as an example. I own 11 acres in Appling, GA that before we purchased was wildlife desert. The timber was overstocked, the ground baron, and little to no hard cover to speak of. I set out to open up our little piece of heaven by incorporating the site clearing with a logging operation that had dual capabilities and common goal in mind. To reduce impacts to soils and residual timber while providing the disturbance that was needed to get this place back to a state where it could provide benefit to the wildlife and my family. A marked tree harvest was conducted, this mean I personally marked each tree to remove just as I would do with your property and monitored the logging job to ensure no trees that weee to remain were damaged. I then a year later, did an assessment of the thinning response and noted hardwood competition was beginning to encroach upon the forest floors ability to produce beneficial biomass for my wildlife but was also going to hinder my view out my back window. That late summer early fall, I conducted a herbicide treatment that targeted predominantly sweetgum and elm regeneration and left the other beneficial species untouched. After application, we gave 60 days of the herbicide to take effect and then applied a prescribed burn of the area. What happened next was absolutely amazing! Native grasses, forbs, and legumes exploded across the whole entire area. Deer, turkey, owls, hawks, all these creatures returned to using the area. It was a wildlife paradise and still is to this day. You can have all this with very little effort and at a very low cost! Being a forester, we are often required to keep our cost minimal to maximize return and managing smaller parcels is no different. You can provide the same great benefits and we have the tools to do it! Please give us a call, text, write, whatever you feel comfortable with! We will come out and conduct a free, yes I said it, FREE assessment to determine your goals for your property and what we can do to get you on the right path! Now is the time to put things in motion and put to work all the wishes and wants you have for your land. Look to Big Creek Forestry and Wildlife to make all those dreams come true!

02/04/2026

*Data Center is Coming- Now What?*

There has been a lot of talk in my community and in other surrounding communities about data centers coming and the effects that they will possibly have on the surrounding residence. Fortunately or unfortunately, however you look at it, these facilities are going to become a common addition and we must begin to plan how we intend to deal with it as private landowners living in or around these facilities. Now is the time to begin preparing for the residual effects of these facilites. Concerns such as noise, light pollution and draw on ground water are all justified concerns and potential side effects of something we unfortunately have no control over. There are ways to minimize the effects. Planting natural buffers of trees as wide as 100 ft. can reduce percived noise levels by as much as 50 percent. Planting strategic buffers breaks the light pollution that could potentially come from the industrial hubs. Planting trees also provides much needed shade to reduce evaporation on creeks and streams as well as allows creeks to maintain an equilibrium of temperature supporting life. Living in and around trees has been proven to support mental health and quality of life. Now is the time to look at planting buffers that will eventually provide you the peace and quit you always thought you would have. Let Big Creek Forestry and Wildlife help you plan a nativescape that will provide the benefits that you are looking for. We select native tree and plant species that are conditioned to your soils and daily light exposure. Fruit trees can be oftentimes woven into these plans to provide you the benefit of a food source to you and your wildlife. Let us put a plan together for you today and begin to put your mind at ease knowing relief is to come.

01/31/2026

One of the benefits of having a consulting forester administer a timber sale for you is taking the benefit of their knowledge in forest markets and capitalizing on the product classes your tract has in inventory. Pine pulpwood is the dirty word of the day and any chance we can get to get away from the “p” word we will! Of course a lot of this depends on your tract product classes and the mix of products that are found in your inventory. On one particular tract, we were able to market some of our pulpwood products to a post market that not only pays a little bit more but diverts the pulpwood volume to another market that’s actually taking wood. If you’re considering selling any of your timber in today’s markets, I highly suggest hiring a forestry consultant to get you the best bang for your buck! Our state I home to some of the best foresters in the world in my opinion and i suggest getting with one of them if you are considering cutting timber. Big Creek Forestry and Wildlife Consulting here for you to make those decision’s if you so wish to do so. Initial consulations are FREE! Thats right, FREE! Not often we hear that word anymore but you will with us! Give us a call today and maximize your return.