Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Texas Amphibian Watch wants to make sure Texas always has healthy populations of frogs and toads.

Texas Amphibian Watch is one of our citizen science programs. That means that we are involving everyday Texas citizens in gathering data. And in this case we’re looking at amphibians, a group of species that are in a lot of trouble worldwide.

Lee Ann Linam coordinates the Texas Amphibian Watch program. It’s easy to get involved.

People can pick up a packet of monitoring materials that we offer for free, and they can purchase a CD of frog and toad calls. It has nearly all the frogs and toads in Texas, to learn your frog and toad calls. And then you can actually choose your own place that you want to monitor, and go out and begin recording data.

With a state as big as Texas, the program only has eighty volunteers, and needs more.

East Texas is an area that’s very rich in frog and toad species, yet, we don’t have too many volunteers from that area. South Texas is a place where Texas has some very interesting species that we share with Mexico, and we’d like to keep better track of what’s going on with them. And then, you have to be in the right place at the right time, but we certainly need more volunteers from West Texas.

We have links where you can download monitoring forms at passporttotexas.org.

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 and Wildlife Restoration Program

Most of us only know mussels—bivalve mollusks—from the grocery store seafood counter. What you may not know is Texas hosts more than fifty species of native freshwater mussels.

They can vary in shapes and sizes. Some of them are very small to, say, an inch or two. And some of them can be very large—nine or ten inches. And they can live anywhere from ten years to a hundred years, depending on the species.

Marsha May oversees the Texas Mussel Watch Program, a citizen science project that enlists people to monitor freshwater mussels, one of the most imperiled groups of organisms in the US.

They are very sensitive to changes in their environment, and many species of freshwater mussels can’t handle that change. We’re finding shells in those situations where the animals have died off.

Mussel Watch participants play a vital role in helping researchers understand these organisms. If you want to become a citizen scientist, you must attend a workshop.

We have a few workshops scheduled for the spring. One will be in Tyler, we’ll have another one in San Antonio, and we’ll have another one in Bastrop. And if folks are interested, they can go to our website to find out when these workshops occur.

Find links to Mussel Watch Workshops at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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April 12, 2008 — Old Sabine Bottom WMA — Texas Mussel Watch Train the Trainer Workshop — This workshop is sponsored by the East Texas Master Naturalist Chapter. SBEC and TEEAC credit available for teachers. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; fee $10, includes materials; preregistration required. To register and for more information, contact Irene Hamel at Irene.hamel@tpwd.state.tx.us or (903) 566-9394. (903) 566-1626.

 

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Wildlife Restoration program

It may interest you to learn that…

Freshwater musselsare the most imperiled group of organism in North America.

Marsha May oversees the Texas Mussel Watch Program for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

We have fifty-two, fifty-three species of freshwater mussels in Texas, and they live in our freshwater streams and lakes and ponds, and even in stock ponds and tanks. And they have
been in Texas for thousands and thousands of years. And they’re just amazing creatures. They clean the systems. They’re nature’s bio-filters, and a very important part of the ecosystem.

Texas Mussels Watch is an ongoing citizen science project that needs your help.

We want to get citizens involved in monitoring their populations throughout the state, because there’s been very little monitoring being done. And, they are a very important organism. To get involved a citizen would have to have to go through training, because you have to have a permit in order to even handle a shell of a freshwater mussel. So, we supply workshops where we train individuals on how to monitor them and how to be very careful with them. And, we really just want to know where they are, and how many there are out there.

Find links to Mussel Watch Workshops at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show…we receive support from the Wildlife Restoration Program…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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April 12, 2008 — Old Sabine Bottom WMA — Texas Mussel Watch Train the Trainer Workshop — This workshop is sponsored by the East Texas Master Naturalist Chapter. SBEC and TEEAC credit available for teachers. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; fee $10, includes materials; preregistration required. To register and for more information, contact Irene Hamel at Irene.hamel@tpwd.state.tx.us or (903) 566-9394. (903) 566-1626.

 

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Until recently, I did not know hummingbirds ate insects.

Well, if you think about it, an animal that’s swinging it’s arms at 72 times a second, needs something to rebuild those muscles that it’s exercising in there. And, without protein, they’re not going to build muscle.

So, if you find insects, such as bees, snacking at your hummingbird feeder, Mark Klym says, don’t panic.

People get all excited when bees get around their hummingbird feeder. And, bees are a great food for hummingbirds. I’ve watched them take bees out of the air.

Klym coordinates the Texas Hummingbird Roundup, a citizen science project where folks like you help biologists take stock of hummers.

We ask people to have a look out in the backyard once a week, about fifteen, twenty minutes a week, and give us a count of what birds [hummingbirds] you’re seeing out there. How many? What Species? What are they using? And then, if you see anything unusual—you find a nest, you see mating behavior—we ask you to record it and let us know about it. Once a year we have these forms sent back in and right now we’re reviewing the data from the 2007 season.

Download an information packet about the roundup, and find out where you can purchase a hummingbird identification wheel at passporttotexas.org.

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 and Wildlife Restoration Program

Amphibians are good indicator species because they live on land and in water during their lifecycle.

Amphibians, because of their very lifestyle, you can imagine are sensitive to a lot of changes in our environment. They’re kind of canaries in the coal mine.

Lee Ann Linam coordinates the Texas Amphibian Watch program. Because of their land/water lifestyle and semi permeable skin, amphibians experience the best and worst of both worlds.

They’re affected by habitat loss, by broader changes in the world around them. Things like climate change that may shift rainfall patterns. Or, they’re sensitive to UV radiation, so those kinds of changes can affect them. They’re sensitive to environmental contaminants that can be absorbed through their skin. So, you can see that they’re kind of a good picture of the overall ecosystem health.

If that’s the case, humans better pay attention.

A recent assessment by an international group of scientists showed that somewhere between one-third and one-half of all the six thousand amphibian species in the world are in trouble. One hundred and twenty-two of them are already extinct as far as we know. And so this is a rate of extinction that perhaps is unprecedented in this period of time.

Help monitor the health of amphibians. Find out how at passporttotexas.org.

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

 

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