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

The Plecos or Suckermouth catfish seems extremely beneficial when it’s in an aquarium. It keeps the tank clean by eating algae. But people sometimes dump the plecos into Texas waters. They think they’re saving the fish’s life. But the fish end up thriving in Texas waters and destroying the habitat of native fish.

Gary Garrett, a Parks and Wildlife fisheries biologist, says the plecos is harming endangered species in Texas streams.

Being a tropical fish, they do best in these spring systems where the temperature doesn’t vary that much over the year. And unfortunately in these spring systems, we have many of our fairly rare fishes, even endangered and threatened species there.

Two of those species are the threatened Devil’s River Minnow and the endangered Fountain Darter. And the fountain darter is only found in the San Marcos and Comal rivers.

Luci Cook-Hildreth is a Parks and Wildlife projects coordinator in Inland Fisheries. She says the plecos is much larger than most of the fish it threatens, giving it an unfair advantage. And this could be devastating to the ecosystem.

That one fish that we want to save is part of something bigger. It’s part of a food web. So that losing this one piece of the puzzle has a ripple effect.

That’s our show…with research and writing help from Gretchen Mahan. You can find more information at passporttotexas.org. For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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This is Passport to Texas Outdoor Stories

If you don’t think fishing makes memories, then you haven’t heard Scott Harris of Austin tell his real life fish story of the boy and the barracuda.

On one of my first deep sea fishing trips with my oldest son, in the gulf, out of Port Aransas, he wouldn’t concentrate. He was just playing with his bait, just up under the boat; nowhere near have the 230 or so feet where we were bottom fishing. And I was just about to admonish him to, you know, drop your bait down and see if you can catch a nice snapper. And I was looking at his bait bouncing on the water, just ten or fifteen feet below the boat, and a barracuda longer than him shot up like a lightening bolt and engulfed his bait, and zoomed up in an arc, and jumped and he reeled it in all by his tiny self. And we gaffed it and pulled it on the boat; and all the grown men jumped up on the benches as it was thrashing and gnashing the needle-sharp teeth. And, it was a beautiful fish that’s back out there now to give someone else a thrill. And it’s a story that comes up every single time we’re in a group of people who love to fish. Fishing makes great memories.

If you have an outdoor memory you’d like to share, do so at passporttotexas.org.

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

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This is Passport to Texas

Alligator gar, virtually unchanged from prehistoric times, is attracting an enthusiastic 21st Century following.

The species in recent years has become very popular amongst anglers and bow fishers.

David Buckmeier is a fisheries scientist for Parks and Wildlife. To fish for gar, you have to know where to find them.

Most alligator gar are found in coastal rivers along the eastern part of the state; rivers like the Trinity are very, very well-known for their alligator gar populations. They’re also found in our coastal bays. They’re an interesting species in that they can go back and forth—maybe not into full salt water like in the gulf—but definitely in the bay systems. And they can go back and forth into the river and into those upper parts of those bays.

The alligator gar is the largest freshwater fish in Texas and gives anglers a good fight.

Yes, they actually fight quite well. As you can imagine, any fish that weighs 150 or 200 pounds has a lot of power. So, they do fight; they actually jump quite a bit. They’ll completely clear the water. There’s some variations; some of them are more sluggish than others. But, they’re very entertaining and that’s the reason, I guess, for the popularity.

Anglers may keep one of these big fish per day. Lean more about freshwater fishing at the Texas parks and Wildlife website.

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

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This is Passport to Texas

Evolution bypassed the alligator gar. Compare today’s gar to the fossil record, and the differences are insignificant.

They’re often perceived as this very primitive, horrible fish that is kind of scary looking. So people, for that reason, have some fear of them.

David Buckmeier, a fisheries scientist for parks and wildlife, says this coastal river-dwelling freshwater fish is actually quite docile despite appearances.

The alligator gar is the largest freshwater fish in Texas, and can grow up to ten feet long and have the potential of tipping the scales at over three hundred pounds.

They have a head shaped much like that of an alligator, hence the name. They are quite primitive; they have heavy bony scales all across their body, which are called ganoid scales. And it’s actual bone plates that protect that fish.

A behavior that some find unnerving is the gar’s tendency to linger at the water’s surface.

Their gills aren’t advanced enough to get enough oxygen, especially when the water temperatures are warm. So, that’s why people will frequently see them at the top of the water; they’ll come up, gulp air then and go back down.

So maybe, it’s not that their gills aren’t advanced enough, maybe they are evolving and they’re going to be crawling on the land soon.

(laughs) Unlikely. They’ve been around for a long, long time, and they’ve been the same way.

Alligator gar is abundant in Texas, and is a sought after sport fish. More on that tomorrow.

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

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