Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

For Texans of a certain age, horned lizards were a common sight; not anymore. Luckily, money raised from the sale of horned lizard conservation license plates provides funds to study this enigmatic species.

06— We have funded conservation projects on Texas horned lizards. One of those is with the Fort Worth Zoo.

Michael Warriner is non-game program supervisor with Texas Parks and Wildlife.

18—Fort Worth Zoo has an active captive breeding program, and they’re working at reintroducing Texas horned lizards back to areas where they used to occur. And we’ve supported that effort in terms of supplies, personnel, and helping them facilitate that reintroduction of horned lizards.

Warriner says monies from the plate also fund a project by Texas Tech that studies horned lizard habitat use.

07—So we can understand what sorts of habitat they prefer, and how can we manage habitat to better support their populations.

Development has reduced historic horned lizard habitat.

10—There may be other factors preventing them from reestablishing, but we try and determine what’s the best quality habitat [currently available] and reintroduce them to those areas.

Find information about the horned lizard and other conservation plates at conservationplate.org.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series and funds diverse conservation projects in Texas.

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