Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Sophisticated surveillance technology that once cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars is now within reach of the average citizen—including biologists.

14—That’s right. There are some technologies that were developed for military purposes, or oil and gas type purposes, that historically have been too costly for us to be able to apply for fish and game conservation.

Tim Birdsong is a biologist who oversees habitat conservation at Parks and Wildlife.

15—You can now purchase a side scan sonar until at Bass Pro Shops, or Cabela’s, or some other retail outlet for roughly $2,000. So, some of this technology that costs in the tens or hundreds of thousand dollars previously, anglers can go purchase off of a shelf.

One hundred ninety one-thousand miles of rivers and streams in Texas need to be surveyed, and biologists “on the ground” have traditionally collected the data.

24—And that limits our ability to be able to actually restore, protect habitat, for fish and other aquatic life. We may spend two to three weeks mapping invasive aquatic plants; [whereas] some of the newer remote sensing technologies such as Unmanned Aerial Aircraft, allow us to very cheaply map these areas in a fraction of the time…potentially 2-3 days to map a reservoir, compared to 2-3 weeks, historically.

More on this time and money saving technology on tomorrow’s show.

That’s our show…with support from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program…..providing funding to conserve habitat for Texas sport fisheries….…

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

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