Passport to Texas

Give a gift of the outdoors. [Big Bend Ranch State Park]

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This is Passport to Texas

Holiday gift giving season is upon us, and if you have nature lovers on your list—the giving is easy—and twice as nice.

A seventy-dollar Texas State Parks Pass is a thoughtful gift for your outdoor enthusiast. Pass holders enjoy twelve months of unlimited visits to more than ninety state parks and historic sites. They also get discounts on camping and recreational equipment rentals. Money spent on the pass supports your Texas state parks.

For thirty dollars each, you can give the drivers on your list a conservation license plate. Twenty-two dollars from every sale goes directly to help fund conservation efforts in Texas.

Give every outdoor lover on your list access to more than a million acres of public land—with the Limited Use Permit—for the ridiculously reasonable price of twelve dollars.

Permit holders receive twelve months of access to Texas’ wildlife management areas, where they can fish, hike, bird watch, cycle, and camp.

When you give one of these gifts, you delight the receiver, and help support state parks and conservation in Texas.

Of course, you can always give the gift of yourself to those you love by spending time with them outdoors, away from the hustle and bustle of modern living—if only for a few hours.

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

One of the many natural features at Gus Engeling WMA

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This is Passport to Texas

The countryside that greeted east Texas settlers in the 1800s looked different than it does today. Known as the Post Oak Savannah, this region once covered 8 million acres between the Pineywoods to the east and the Blackland prairies to the west. Yet two centuries of farming, grazing and timbering took their toll.

A small patch of land exists today that offers us a glimpse of this vanished habitat. It’s the Gus Engeling Wildlife Management area, located in Anderson County, 21 miles northwest of Palestine. This nearly 11-thousand acre site was purchased from 1950 to 1960, under the Pittman-Robertson Act, using Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Program funds.

The WMAs primary purpose is to function as a wildlife research and demonstration area for the Post Oak Savannah Ecoregion. The area is comprised of 2,000 acres of hardwood bottomland floodplain and almost 500 acres of natural watercourses, 350 acres of wetlands, marshes and swamps and nearly 300 acres of sphagnum moss bogs.
Anglers and hunters need only possess an Annual Public Hunting Permit and valid hunting license to gain access on designated days during the appropriate season.

Visitors may enjoy nature viewing, bird watching, photography, hiking, camping and the general beauty of nature. Learn more about the Gus Engeling Wildlife Management on the TPW website.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

Relocating Desert Bighorn Sheep, photo by Earl Nottingham, TPWD

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This is Passport to Texas

There’s a special quality about Far West Texas; and, as Froylan Hernandez can tell you. When Desert Bighorn Sheep are on the landscape, it’s awe-inspiring.

When I’m up on top of Elephant Mountain, my first glimpse of them, it’s overwhelming. Even if it’s just a single animal.

Hernandez is Desert Bighorn Sheep Program Leader for Texas Parks & Wildlife.

Historically, the native Texas Desert Bighorn Sheep occurred in about 16 mountain ranges out here in the Trans Pecos. Mainly due to unregulated hunting, diseases associated with the introduction of domestic sheep and goats, and net wire fencing – they brought the demise of the Desert Bighorn. And by the early 1960s, they were all gone from Texas.

For more than fifty years, Texas Parks and Wildlife and partners have worked to restore the Bighorn to its home range in Texas.

Luckily, the population in Texas is now big enough, we’re using those sources to transplant the animals to Big Bend Ranch State park.

And Big Bend Ranch SP superintendent Ron Trevizo welcomes them to a new home on the range.

When we started talking about the release coming in – to release the Desert Bighorn Sheep at Big Bend Ranch, I’m like – Yea, that’s great!

See how agency biologists translocate Desert Bighorn Sheep when you check out the Texas Parks and Wildlife YouTube Channel.

The Wildlife restoration program supports our series.

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

Entrance to Justin Hurst WMA

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This is Passport

Texas Landowners learn how to manage their acreage by emulating wildlife biologists who keep the state’s Wildlife Management Areas in top form.

Wildlife biologists go out on the WMAs and they take a look at what we have; what the baseline is. And then they take a look at historically what has been there in terms of vegetation and wild animals. They’ll determine what it takes to restore that habitat, or to enhance that habitat.

Dennis Gissell is Wildlife Management Area facilities coordinator. Texas Wildlife Management Areas’ encompass about three-quarters of a million acres.

[The] largest WMA is in east Texas – the Sam Houston National Forest, which is actually a US Forest Service Property that we lease/license from them to manage. It’s over 160-thousand acres. The smallest is near Corpus Christi.

And that WMA is only 36 acres! The aim is to have WMAs for teaching and research in each of the state’s 10 ego-regions. Every one provides opportunities for discovery and learning, even when they are small.

These smaller tracts of land have really unique features. In this case – this particular property – has a wetland and a pond that has historically, been very attractive to waterfowl.

Find more information about WMAs on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife restoration program supports our series and helps to fund the management of Texas’ 50 Wildlife Management Areas.

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

Texas Wildlife Management Areas are a training ground for landowners who wish to become better stewards of their land.

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This is Passport

Texas landowners are vital to long-term statewide habitat and wildlife conservation strategies.

Something that folks really are not aware of is that the water that they drink, the air tht they breathe, the clothes they wear, and even the fuels that provide energy for their vehicles and power plants, come from private lands in Texas.

Dennis Gissell is Wildlife Management Area facilities coordinator.

Private landowners really are stewarding not only the natural habitat, but they’re providing the resources that we as humans must have to survive.

Texas Parks and Wildlife uses Wildlife Management Areas to educate landowners about conserving wildlife and habitat, including water.

When you’re dealing with either surface water or groundwater, people need to be aware that that surface water is coming through lands that are owned by private landowners, and the extent to which they manage the vegetation and the habitat there, allows that water to be filtered naturally before it arrives at a lake or a river.

Texas landowners take stewardship seriously. Gissell says he hopes this remains true as ownership changes.

The former farms and ranches that were owned by some of the original settlement families in Texas are being sold off and broken up to some degree; we call that habitat fragmentation. As landowners acquire those lands, we think it is very important that they understand the role of stewardship, and managing and conserving wildlife habitat.

The Wildlife restoration program supports our series and helps to fund the management of Texas’ 50 Wildlife Management Areas.

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