Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

How do you balance the needs of wildlife and habitat, with wind energy? Find out this month and next on the TPW TV series: Producer Abe Moore.

One of the areas we go is up in the Panhandle, where wind energy is threatening tall grass prairies and the Lesser prairie Chicken, which is there; and it’s got biologists a little concerned.

They don’t do well with change on the landscape. We think that we’re displacing or moving a nesting female away from where she wants to be, and we don’t have much habitat left for her to go to.

We also do a second part on wind energy and we go down to the coast, where wind energy is being developed even faster than in the Panhandle. And, it’s a concern because it’s in the Central Flyway where millions of birds migrate through. So you have all these birds and you’re putting wind turbines in there. So there’s a balance there. We talk with Penescal Wind Farm down there. And they have a radar system set up where they can see the birds coming before they get there.

The radar itself generates a curtailment command, and in less than one minute all the turbines will be turning at less than one RPM. And in within five minutes, all of them are completely stationary.

So, both on the coast, and on the Panhandle, it comes down to habitat issues and trying to site them in the right place.

That’s our show… with support from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

 

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This is Passport to Texas

[cacophony of birds] This is the ruckus you hear during spring and summer days on North Deer Island after its temporary residents—18 species of marine birds and their nestlings—set up housekeeping.

[backhoes limestone] For the past nine years, after the birds vacate in winter, the roar of backhoes spreading tons of limestone rubble along the rookery island’s shoreline replaced their calls. Coastal ecologist, Jamie Schubert.

They’re constructing a rock breakwater. And it will trip the waves, reducing the wave energies causing erosion on the island.

Pounding waves eroded the landmass, and without creating water breaks and additional nesting area, the future well-being of the island’s full-time and part-time inhabitants would be at risk.

We beefed up this side of the island with the dredge material and armored that with limestone rock. The barge wakes had kind of breeched this shoreline in here, so this project should allow this berm to reestablish with marsh vegetation, and give us a nice little marsh pond in here.

The island has been instrumental in the recovery of the Brown Pelican, and its wetland marshes provide valuable nursery habitat for shrimp, redfish and other important fish species. Preserving this rookery island means wildlife will always have a place in Texas to call home.

That’s our show… with support from the Wildlife Restoration program…funding habitat restoration in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

 

 North Deer Island Restoration, 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Eighteen species of birds rely on North Deer Island, near Galveston, for nesting habitat. Yet, over time, pounding waves caused by high winds and barge traffic eroded the shoreline of this natural rookery island.

Erosion really accelerated over the last four or five years. A rough estimate is [we lose] probably three to five acres a year.

That’s Bob Galloway—Houston Audubon Society’s Island Warden. Without intervention, it’s estimated the island, located next to the gulf intercoastal waterway, would decrease in size by 30% over the next 30 years. Coastal ecologist, Jamie Schubert.

This northeastern bluff is the most visually striking area of erosion. It’s been undermined by barge wakes and northerly storms blowing in waves that have undermined the bottom of the bluff and caused collapse at the top with these shrubs and other bushes falling down.

So, Audubon teamed up with Texas Parks and Wildlife and to protect the shoreline.

What this crew is doing is they’re constructing a rock breakwater, and it’ll trip the waves, reducing the wave energies that cause erosion on the island.

We’ll have more about that tomorrow.

That’s our show… with support from the Wildlife Restoration program…funding habitat restoration in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

 

 North Deer Island Restoration, 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

For more than a decade, researchers at the Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center in Kerrville have battled the hybrid progeny of Guadalupe bass—the state fish of Texas—and the introduced Smallmouth bass.

We’re raising thousands of pure Guadalupe bass here at the research station. And every year we stock them back into nature. Basically, what we’re doing is replacing the hybrids that are out there with these pure Guadalupe bass. And we’ll let nature take its course form there.

That’s Gary Garrett, who initiated the Guadalupe bass recovery program. The fish exists only in the Texas Hill Country—in the headwaters of streams that drain the Edward’s Plateau.

Shortly after non-native smallmouth bass were introduced to Texas waters, they bred with native bass, resulting in an explosion of hybrids. But using a technique called “saturation stocking,” Garrett and his crew have made exceptional progress.

So far we’re seeing here in Johnson Creek, where we began eh study, we started where 30 percent of the fish were hybrids. And that wasn’t stable—it was still increasing when we started. It is now down to around three percent. Which is excellent! Top go from thirty to three is great. Now we want to go from three to zero.

And Garrett expects to reach zero in the next four to five years.

That’s our show… we receive support from the SF Restoration program…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

 

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This is Passport to Texas

Some ideas seem good when you first have them. Then after some time passes—not so much. Take smallmouth bass, for example, and their effect on the Guadalupe bass population.

Small mouth bass, of course, are not native to Texas, but were brought in as an additional sport fish. The problem is they can’t tell each other apart. Even though they look very different, but evidently, they act similar enough behaviorally that they’ll reproduce—and they have hybrids.

That’s Gary Garrett, Director of the Watershed Conservation Program. So, what’s wrong with hybrids, anyway?

Hybrids, by definition, are halfway between the parents. So, they’re not as well adapted for their environment; they may do well in the short run, but in the long haul, they’re really not going to be as good a species.

Besides, they’re the state fish of Texas, occurring only in the Hill Country. And, well, you just don’t mess with Texas.

The other thing we’re now seeing a little bit is that these hybrids are now also crossing with our largemouth bass…which is yet another problem we want to avoid.

And you definitely don’t mess with largemouth bass. But, we’ve started to turn the tide on these hybrids with saturation stocking.

And we’re confident that in the next four or five years we’re going to be able to solve this problem.

That’s our show… we receive support from the SF Restoration program…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

 

 Guadalupe Bass--A Hybrid Problem: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download