Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Wildlife biologists, like Kelly Simon (SEA-mah) specialize in–city critters–and their habitat in Central Texas.

09-I’m a wildlife biologist who happens to work in an urban area; just like all of our biologists, I deal with the issues that are important to their counties and their areas.

Like her rural counterparts, Simon meets with landowners to provide technical guidance regarding land use.

12- I also deal with municipal ordinances, and councils of government, and all the different landowners that have a stake in the wildlife and wildlife habitat for their urbanized area.

Outreach and public meetings round out her work.

05- [I] just try to help folks understand, and enhance the wildlife habitat that they have all around them.

This doesn’t mean developing downtown habitat suitable for mountain lions, but it does mean creating a balanced wildlife habitat for appropriate species.

18-So, what I do is I try to help people make decisions that will increase the diversity and balance of wildlife habitat, so that we have things like chickadees and titmice and owls and frogs and toads and lizards–and things that are important for ecological balance and biodiversity–and also appropriate for an urbanized area.

Find your county’s wildlife biologist when you log onto the Texas Parks and Wildlife website. The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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