Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

[SFX brown pelicans calling]

Standing on the shore of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, wildlife veterinarian, Dan Mulcahy, called it a good day for pelicans affected by the oil spill in the gulf.

06—We’re here today to participate in the largest release of oiled pelicans following the oil spill to date.

In late June, 38 animals arrived at Rockport Airport via Coast Guard Jet from a Louisiana rehabilitation center. Their final destination: Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.

12—They were picked up here at the Rockport Airport by the staff of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and TPW, and were released as fast as we could undo the crates and let them go.

Once free, the birds gathered on the water away from shore and preened, which pleased Nancy Brown from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

03—They can focus on preening as opposed to just surviving.

Texas offers abundant habitat for the pelicans. Yet, these iconic birds still aren’t out of danger. Any long-term health effects from their ordeal are yet unknown.

08—We look forward to coming out here next year and hopefully seeing these birds and hopefully they’re fatter and happier and doing well here on the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.

Before their release, biologists placed a steel band with a unique ID on each bird’s leg to track our newest Texans into what will hopefully be a long and healthy future.

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

 

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This is Passport to Texas

The Kemps’ Ridley may be the best known—and most threatened—sea turtle that occurs along the Texas coast, but it’s not the only one.

19—The ones that we hear most commonly about are the Kemp’s Ridley, and the green sea turtle—the green sea turtle is threatened in Texas and the populations are increasing. Also in Texas, there’s the Loggerhead, that’s a threatened species. What we hear about less are both endangered turtles: The Hawksbill and the Leatherback.

Dr. Donna Shaver is with the US National Park Service at Padre Island National Seashore. She says if you ever see stranded or nesting sea turtles, report your observation to officials.

17—Many of our entrances to beach access roads, signs are posted that have a telephone number to call. And then once they call, they will receive a recorded message that will tell them the proper contact number for the particular geographic area where they are located.

The number to call is 1-866-TURTLE5…And if you come across a nesting female…

17—Stay back from the nesting turtle until she’s dug her hole with her rear flippers and is remaining mostly motionless and laying eggs. At that time, without touching the turtle, look for any tags, and without piercing anything into the sand, put a designating market next to where the turtle laid her eggs.

Find more information on sea turtles when you log onto the Texas parks and Wildlife website.

Our show receives 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

The news along the TX coast during late winter and early spring was the high number of sea turtle strandings.

:12—A stranded sea turtle is one that is found washed ashore, or floating. It can be alive or dead, but if it’s alive, it’s generally in a weakened condition.

Dr. Donna Shaver is with the US National Park Service and specializes in sea turtle research and conservation at Padre Island National Seashore. Between 250 and 750 sea turtles end up stranded each year, but Dr. Shaver says 2010 got off to an alarming start.

:18—We have already started out the year at a record pace. We had the largest cold-stunning event that’s been recorded since 1980. There were about 460 green sea turtles that were located stranded, and two loggerheads, during this particular event—January into February.

When I spoke with Dr. Shaver in late April, she said 76 sea turtles had stranded from the upper to the lower coast between April 4 and 24th

:15—One of the things that’s caught the attention for the spike on the upper Texas coast is that 20 of the 21 turtles were Kemp’s Ridley; whereas, those found elsewhere in the state were more of a mixture of other species.

The cause of the strandings is under investigation, and Dr. Shaver says it could be anything from predators, to fishing nets, to boat propellers, to debris.

Our show receives 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

Ocelots once roamed throughout Texas, Mexico, and into Arkansas and Louisiana. Jody Mays says today, only a few survive in the thick brush and shelters of the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

As far as we know, there less than 100 ocelots left in the United States. The ocelot’s range has disappeared, and now they only occur in the southern most tip of Texas, and that’s the only place in the whole United States that they occur.

Mays is a Wildlife Biologist at Laguna Atascosa Natural Wildlife Refuge. She explains reasons for the population decline.

Usually with an endangered species, you have multiple impacts that they get hit with. For the ocelot, the biggest one was the habitat loss. Some estimates say that over 95% of the native habitat in Texas has been altered. A lot of the thick habitats have been cleared for agriculture, and for development, and for other purposes. Another associated impact with that is habitat fragmentation, and that’s where, you say, have one large piece of thick habitat that gets cut up into smaller pieces that are farther and farther apart. Loss of genetic diversity is another big issue, and that’s as a result of this habitat loss and fragmentation.

That’s our show for today…supported by the Wildlife Restoration Program… helping to fund the operations and management of more than 50 wildlife management areas…

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

 

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This is Passport to Texas

[Houston toad trill]

You’ll only hear that sound in a small area of Texas.

Like Gauss, or Bastrop, or places that a lot of people haven’t heard of, but those people that know them, that’s what they think of as home.

A home they share with the endangered Houston Toad… an amphibian that doesn’t have a voice when it comes to how humans alter their shared habitat… alteration of habitat is what put the toad in peril.

Mike Forstner is a biology professor at Texas State University, and for nearly two decades he’s worked to keep the toads from fading into oblivion…starting with habitat recovery. Today, with partners including the Houston Zoo, they’re raising toads—called head-starting—to supplement existing populations.

Head-starting is the last stand. It’s when your back’s to the wall, and you’ve got nowhere else to go. An ideal situation would have been that we recovered the habitat and that the populations became reinforced because we recovered the habitat. But we got caught—it stopped raining. And as soon as it stopped raining, we ran right out of room for natural recovery.

Unnatural recovery is better than no recovery at all. Tomorrow we attend a release of head-started toads in Bastrop County.

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

 

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