Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Up to a million Attwater’s Prairie Chickens once occupied more than six million acres of coastal prairie in Texas. By 2005, only 40 birds were estimated in the wild.

That happened primarily because of a loss of habitat. You’ve got places like Houston, Corpus Christi, and as these cities developed, they took a lot of the coastal prairie away. And we also have the problem of Chinese tallow escaping and changing the coastal prairie into a tallow forest.

Mark Klym coordinates the Adopt-a-Prairie Chicken Program.

The Adopt-a-Prairie Chicken program is a fundraising program; seven zoos around the state put a lot of energy into raising birds that are going to be released on the prairie. And this is one way that the people of Texas can get involved and help us to support these zoos.

Thanks in part to this program, recovery efforts for the Attwater’s Prairie Chicken reached a new milestone this year when 6 hens raised 21 chicks to 6-weeks of age in the wild.

And this hasn’t happened before. One hen did do it a couple years ago, but she had a lot of help from the staff at the Attwater’s Prairie Chicken Preserve. This year, some of these hens did it with no assistance at all. And it happened not only at Attwater’s Prairie Chicken Preserve, but also on private land in Goliad county.

Today, there are an estimated 90 Attwater’s Prairie Chickens in the wild at three locations. We’ll tell you more about this bird tomorrow.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Saving water and lush landscapes aren’t mutually exclusive. Gretchen Mahan tells us more…

At the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, six miniature houses on WaterSavers Lane showcase diverse landscapes and their water saving potential. Sir Oliver Smith, a master gardener, describes the typical landscape, complete with a water thirsty lawn.

This is what most people have. They have the traditional hedges at the door and all that manicuring you have to do every week. So this is probably what we don’t want if you want to save on money and save on grass and save on water.

For comparison, he points out an attractive landscape that replaces turf with groundcover.

People like this look; it’s a little less maintenance. And you’re replacing some of the lawn with Asiatic jasmine, which takes no water.

While the jasmine isn’t native, most of the other plants are. This helps save water because native plants generally require less of it survive.

Everyone thinks native plants are just a sticky agarita and the yuccas and the sotals. But all the other things in this garden are native. Vitex and desert willow and redbud and there are a lot of other things that do very well with almost no water.

And they’re beautiful. Contact your local Extension Service to find out which native plants thrive in your area.

Thanks, Gretchen. That’s our show…Find pictures and more information at passporttotexas.org. For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife…

Texas Christian University’s mascot is the horned frog. And with a grant from Texas Parks and Wildlife, Texas Christian University researchers are studying their mascot. Gretchen Mahan tells us more…

The Texas horned lizard, commonly called the horny toad, is a threatened species. Amanda Hale and Dean Williams are assistant professors of biology at TCU. And they’re currently collecting and analyzing horned lizard DNA samples. Williams says when he heard about the need for research on the horned lizard, he thought it would be a good opportunity for his department.

The stuff that we do here is basically conservation genetics. We work with a wide range of organisms, and the project just seemed like a good fit.

Texas horned lizards used to be so populous that people would see them in their neighborhoods…but, not anymore. Because of threats like the imported fire ant, horned lizard populations have significantly declined.

That’s why Hale says they hope to use the DNA for future conservation programs. She says the DNA will help them determine which horned lizard populations are doing best. Then, conservationists might be able to take those lizards and breed them to create a more stable population throughout Texas.

We have about 300 DNA samples from horned lizard, so we have volunteers right now who are trying to fill in gaps in collection throughout the state.

And you can help by contacting TCU’s biology department if you spot a horned lizard.

Thanks Gretchen. That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sport Fish Restoration Program

Great bass fishing in Texas gets better when anglers donate their fish to Parks and Wildlife’s Sharelunker program. Program coordinator, David Campbell.

A Sharelunker is a largemouth bass that weighs 13 pounds or more, legally caught in the state of Texas from private waters and public waters.

Loraine Fries (Fr-EYE-Z) manages the A.E. Wood Genetics Lab in San Marcos. She says geneticists use pieces of fin from donated bass to take DNA “fingerprints.” Information they collect tells them if the fish came from their selective breeding program.

We’re retaining offspring from lunkers, and as they mature and are big enough, we breed them back to other lunkers. And the idea is we are increasing the genetic contribution of lunkers to those offspring.

Florida Largemouth bass, stocked in reservoirs, grow larger than native northern bass, and enhance trophy potential. Geneticist Dijar Lutz-Carrillo (DEE-har luhtz—kah-REE-oh) says, thus far, all donated lunkers have been kin to Florida bass.

All of those fish were either a Florida largemouth bass or a hybrid with Florida largemouth bass influence in the genome. Just using those largest fish, big Florida largemouth bass, and producing fish from them—do those fish get significantly larger than the Florida largemouth bass? And that’s where the fingerprinting comes in.

And possibly where the next world record comes in, too.

That’s our show…supported by a grant from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program… working to increase fishing and boating opportunities in Texas.

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

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program

Dijar Lutz-Carrillo (DEE-har luhtz—kah-REE-oh) is a geneticist at the A.E. Wood Laboratory in San Marcos.

And we do everything genetics related for Inland Fisheries.

Lutz-Carrillo says geneticists help to answer questions biologists might have about freshwater fish. Some of the questions currently being posed involve DNA “fingerprinting” of largemouth bass.

In terms of the DNA fingerprinting, the questions they’re specifically asking are: is this fish from this reservoir produced in the wild, or produced at the hatchery? And if it’s produced at the hatchery is it with the OWR program—or Operation World Record—and if it’s from that program, who are its parents in that program? So, you’re asking the question who’s your daddy? Yeah, that’s the question (laughs). And your mommy.

Largemouth bass top the list of popular freshwater sport fish…and Parks and Wildlife is attempting to produce world record bass using genetic testing and selective breeding. Loraine Fries (Fr-EYE-Z) is lab manager,

It’s all related to fisheries management and our interest in having the best fishing in the world here in Texas.

We’ll have more on this topic tomorrow.

That’s our show…supported by a grant from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program… working to increase fishing, hunting, shooting and boating opportunities in Texas.

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

 Fish Genetics, 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download