Passport to Texas

Caddo Lake

TPW TV: Caddo Lake Paddling Trail Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

[SFX – paddling]

Gliding along the paddling trails on Caddo Lake in East Texas is at once intimate and humbling: mist dances on the water; giant, moss-covered bald cypress rise up as silent sentinels along the banks; the chorus of bird songs serenade you as you pass by; habitat teams with diverse and abundant wildlife. It’s a special place.

04— It’s beyond words to describe how wonderful this place is.

Vanessa Adams is a natural resource specialist with parks and wildlife.

13— The paddling trails here on Caddo Lake will get you back into some habitat that is just not everywhere, it’s unique. It gets you into a place that you may have never seen before.

Marshall, Texas resident, and Caddo Lake paddling enthusiast, Sandra Phillips, says she feels close to the earth when she’s on this enigmatic lake.

09 – You can’t find this well really anywhere else. All the network of canals and the swampyness of it.

Caddo Lake is different every season, says Vanessa Adams. Paddlers should return often to experience it fully. [SFX – ambience]

05— You gotta get out on the boat, you gotta get in the swamp and you really gotta sit down and you gotta sit and listen.

Caddo Lake’s Paddling trails are featured on the Texas Parks and Wildlife PBS TV series the week of January 19. Check local listings.

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

Destruction of habitat caused by snow geese. Image from USFWS.

Hunting: What's Next for Light Geese? Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

An enormous population of light geese is laying waste to its arctic breeding grounds.

06— You take a look along Hudson Bay – you’re seeing transitions from quality habitat to sub quality habitat.

Dave Morrison is Texas Parks and Wildlife Small Game Program Director.

06— In the arctic, it’s a very slow growing season, and it takes years upon years for something to recover.

A 1999 conservation order allows additional harvesting of geese throughout the flyway after the regular season. For reasons biologists are still trying to understand, while fewer birds come to Texas, they remain abundant to our north, and their population continues to grow.

23—Within the Central Flyway, this past year, we had the council vote to increase the daily bag limit during the regular season from 20 to 50. States north of us have the opportunity to shoot 50. Texas was certainly provided that same opportunity, but we felt it was prudent not to take that step. So, the commission maintained the option to maintain the daily bag limit at 20.

Despite best efforts, an overall increasing light goose population has biologists asking: what’s next?

09—Is there something that we need to do? Or do we just simply sit back and say, ‘These are very resilient birds, and try as we may, they’re the ones that are going to control their destiny.’

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series…

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

Geese at Bonham State Park

Hunting: Impact of Snow Goose Conservation Order Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By 1999 it was clear: an overpopulation of light geese was ravaging its arctic nesting grounds. Without intervention, scientists believed this unique ecosystem would collapse.

05— So, in an effort to try to stem that tide, the light goose conservation order began.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Small Game Program Director, Dave Morrison, says Texas was prepared to do its part.

08— When we started the conservation order, Texas’ harvest during the conservation order was a little over a hundred thousand birds. So, when it started, we knew what to do.

For the past 14 years, this annual management action has occurred primarily in the country’s three eastern flyways; engaging hunters from Canada to Texas.

10—Since that time, you’ve seen a decline in total harvest in Texas from about 100-thousand to about 12-thousand in the last hunting season; there are fewer geese being seen on the coastal zone of Texas.

There are fewer light geese coming to Texas, but their overall population continues to grow. Changes in agricultural practices in the flyway’s midsection may put more food on the ground, and that may keep birds from coming this far south.

12—There are still increased numbers of white geese out there, to such an extent that we had the council vote to increase the daily bag limit during the regular season from 20 to 50.

What that will mean for Texas, tomorrow. The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series… For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Geese at Bonham State Park

Hunting: Goose Conservation Order Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In 1999 the US Fish and Wildlife Service, on the recommendation of scientists, implemented a light goose conservation order.

05— With intent to try to reduce the rate of growth of white geese.

Dave Morrison is Small Game Program Director at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

15—We were seeing problems in the arctic ecosystems whereby the numbers of light geese that were showing up were starting to do habitat degradation. So, in an effort to try to stem that tide, light goose conservation order began.

The conservation order—generally in effect after the end of the migratory bird hunting season—is not, itself, a hunting season.

33—It’s a management action, so it doesn’t fall under the same type of guidelines that our hunting seasons do. For example, the Light Goose Conservation Order –when it started – we increased the daily bag limit to no bag limit. You were able to hunt 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset; you were able to use electronic calls; there’s all sorts of things that came along with this conservation order as an effort to try to reduce the numbers of birds in the nests, and try to turn that population around to get it – instead of increasing to see a declining trend.

It’s been fourteen years since the order was enacted. Has it worked? We’ll find out tomorrow.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series… and is funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motorboat fuel…For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Goose hunting in Texas.

Hunting: Goose Hunting in Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Texas has a great reputation when it comes to goose hunting.

04— Texas has long been known as the snow goose hunting capital of the world.

Dave Morrison is Small Game Program Director at Texas Parks and Wildlife. To hunt geese in Texas you’ll need a hunting license, a migratory game bird stamp, a federal migratory bird stamp and HIP certification. You wouldn’t necessarily hunt geese as you would ducks.

12—A lot of times you’re hunting ducks over water, and in water. A lot of times you’re hunting geese in dry conditions – dry fields. To goose hunt, you need lots of decoys, and you’ve got to have someone who really knows what they’re doing on a call.

Historically, hunters harvest Canada geese in the panhandle, although snow geese are starting to appear on the landscape. The coast, meantime, offers a higher concentration of snow geese.

13—But understand that the snow geese that show up in the high plains are different than the snow geese that show up along the coast. Snow geese that show up on the coast are from the mid-continent flock, whereas that those that show up in the high plains are the western arctic group.

They’re still the same animal, the just come from different subsets of the population. Visit the Texas Parks and Wildlife website for hunting seasons and all regulations.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series… and is funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motorboat fuel…For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.