Current Projects Longleaf Pine Prescribed Fire Forestry Activities Wildlife Management Current Projects

Land Management

Current Projects

Timber Harvest

The Preserve periodically harvests timber to enhance the forest’s health and to provide a revenue stream which helps support the over-all conservation and education mission of the Ida Cason Callaway Foundation.  Our staff forester carefully selects and marks every tree to be cut.

American Chestnut Seed Orchard

The American chestnut was once one of the most important trees in forests from Maine to Georgia.  In 1904 the chestnut blight, an Asian fungus which is very lethal to our native chestnuts, began aggressively killing trees.  During the next 50 years, the American chestnut trees on millions of acres across the eastern U.S. perished.  The American Chestnut Foundation is committed to finding, breeding and growing trees resistant to the blight and restoring this important species to eastern forests.  The Preserve at Callaway Gardens is working in partnership with The Georgia Chapter of The American Chestnut Society on developing blight resistant trees.  The Preserve is currently growing out potentially blight-resistant seeds in an orchard setting on the property.

Annual Bird Surveys

Callaway Gardens' staff, volunteers, and university faculty and students conduct a variety of bird surveys across the property annually.  Surveys conducted include breeding bird surveys, spring and fall migration surveys, and winter resident surveys.  Survey points and walking routes are located in various habitat types ranging from hardwood interior forests to early successional open fields.  Data from these surveys are used to locate areas of greater avifauna richness and aid in habitat management decisions.

Mammal Scent Station Surveys

Scent stations have been set up across The Preserve to investigate mammal populations on the property.  More specifically, the goals of this study are to determine the diversity, relative abundance and population trends of mesomammal (medium-sized mammal) populations on The Preserve.  Species most often encountered include coyote, gray fox, raccoon, opossum and armadillo.  Results from this study aid in the understanding of natural fluctuations in mesomammal populations.

Stream Monitoring

The Preserve has four monitoring sites enrolled in the statewide Adopt-A-Stream program.  This program, run by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, promotes “citizen science” in an effort to monitor water bodies across the state.  By involving citizens in stream monitoring, they not only provide valuable data to the state; they also become more aware of how their actions impact the earth and act as educators in their communities. 

On The Preserve, Callaway volunteers help carry out chemical tests, biological surveys and visual surveys of streams on the property.  Consistently monitoring the streams on the property can tell us a good deal about the watershed as a whole.  The effects of poor land stewardship often show up in nearby streams as low species diversity, siltation, or a number of other systematic problems.  Thanks to responsible land management on The Preserve, the stream indices consistently indicate good to excellent water quality.

For more information on the Adopt-A-Stream program, visit www.georgiaadoptastream.org