Passport to Texas

School of fish attracted to reefed oil platform.

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This is Passport to Texas

The Gulf of Mexico has a lot going for it, except for hard substrate, which is necessary to attract marine life.

So, the little bit of hard substrate that we do have out there, we want to maintain and enhance that.

Dale Shively program leader for the artificial reef program at Texas Parks and Wildlife says they use various materials—from decommissioned ships and old oil platforms to construction rubble—to create substrate.

We don’t dump anything. We deploy materials. The materials that we use have been vetted, they are stable, complex and durable. They’re environmentally safe, and they add to the complexity of the environment that’s there.

Shively says it doesn’t take long before the artificial materials “come to life.”

The material immediately attracts marine organisms—especially fish. That’s one of the features. But, what we look for is long-term settling of organisms at that reef site. In a short period of time they will what we call ‘foul’ the material by growing on it. You’ll get barnacles, and crustaceans and other marine life. Once they settle and actually grow onto the structure that creates the basis of the food web. And from there, you develop a complex reef environment.

And that enhanced food web means better fishing for all.

The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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

Checking caves for White Nose Syndrome, Photo © Mylea Bayless, Bat Conservation International, www.batcon.org

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White nose syndrome is a fungal disease that attacks hibernating bats.

So, the way that white nose hurts them and is fatal to them is by irritating their skin while they’re hibernating.

Jonah Evans is a mammologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife. A skin irritation doesn’t sound fatal, but expending energy reserves is.

Hibernation for a bat is a very narrow budget of energy that they’re trying to make last for many months. And the process of waking up, cleaning off your wings, and fidgeting around a little bit, burns off critical energy—and the result is starvation. They’re just not able to make it through hibernation.

It seems not all bats are affected by White Nose Syndrome even if infected.

If a bat does not hibernate, it means that bat is active all winter long. Some of those stay here in the southern part of the state, but other ones migrate down to Mexico and Central America. And even if those bats get the disease, because they’re active year round, there’s hope that they’ll be constantly replenishing their calories and they won’t perish because of the disease.

Mexican free-tailed bats—the ones in the big caves in Texas—are migratory. Currently, Texas is White Nose Syndrome free. Yet, as a priority species researchers are doing what they can to understand the issue and to develop a management plan should it come to our state.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

White Nose Syndrome, Photo: USFWS

Bat Killing Disease Flanking Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Discovered 10 years ago in upstate New York, white nose syndrome—a fungal disease that kills hibernating bats—traveled a predictable path.

For the previous 10 years it has spread incrementally. From New York State to the neighboring states; one step at a time in a very predictable way. And then, all of a sudden to have it show up in Washington State was out of sequence.

Jonah Evans is a mammologist with TPW. This year’s discovery in Washington State is the first recorded occurrence of WNS in western North America. Prior to that, researchers predicted the disease would eventually reach the western states by way of the Texas Panhandle.

In some ways I like to think of it as the enemy has flanked us. We had clear battle lines drawn. We knew which direction the enemy was advancing. And all of a sudden, it’s coming from behind us as well. It’s definitely not encouraging. It’s actually quite alarming in the bat and white nose research communities.

While researchers do not know for sure how the disease got to Washington, many suspect it may have been transported by people. So, prevention starts with cavers.

Especially people who are frequent cavers who might go from one spot to another and then travel to another state, and go into multiple caves. We’re really encouraging caving communities and other people going into caves to be really cautious and to use decontamination whenever they can.

Find a link to decontamination protocols at passporttotexas.org.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

Bats at Devil’s Sinkhole State Natural Area.

Busting Myths About Bats Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Bat have been maligned for centuries.

Most people don’t know anything about them because they don’t have any interaction with them.

Fran Hutchins is with Bat Conservation International.

People know a lot about birds, and most people aren’t afraid of birds because they see ‘em all day long. Bats are flying around at night when most of us are home sleeping. And unless we see ‘em around a street light or dipping down into somebody’s swimming poll to get a drink of water—most people don’t have any contact with bats. So, what they know about them is what they’ve seen on TV. And most of the time on TV—especially if it’s Hollywood—they’re bloodsucking monsters that are flying in and dragging someone off into the tree line and sucking them dry.

There are no blood sucking bats in Texas. And of the 1300 bat species worldwide, Hutchins says only three feed on blood.

The rest of them are insect eating bats and pollinating bats, and fruit bats that are really important to us.

Hutchins adds bats are not blind, they won’t tangle up in your hair, and they do not carry rabies.

People think all bats have rabies—and they don’t. Rabies is a virus that’s out there in the environment that bats, as mammals, can get as we do. They’re not carriers. If a bat gets sick with rabies, it dies.

That’s why we never handle bats that are on the ground. They could be sick. Other than that—they are beneficial mammals that deserve our respect.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

Big Time Texas Hunt at Black Gap WMA

Hunting as an Act of Conservation Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Hunting is not only a tradition in Texas—it is also a commitment to wildlife conservation.

Hunters started to see declines in certain game species populations and habitat. And realized if they want to enjoy perusing game (it doesn’t even have be for harvest), just if they want to see that perpetuated so their kids, and future generations can enjoy that, they realized they needed to protect it.

Alan Cain, Texas whitetail deer program leader, says in the early 20th century, hunters chose to conserve wildlife through taxation.

In 1937, you had the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act – called the Pittman-Robertson Act – [signed into law]. Basically it’s a user pay system where the hunters said, ‘okay, we’re going to tax ourselves to help pay for wildlife conservation.’ And that’s been a huge success. In my opinion, that’s why North America has the best wildlife management conservation model in the world – because hunters pay for that.

Hunters pay with the licenses they buy, and the excise tax levied on firearms, ammunition and other equipment, which goes directly to fund conservation.

And then the second part of that is that hunters not only play a role in funding conservation that benefits everybody, but they also play a role in managing deer populations out there.

By removing deer from the landscape, they help keep habitat in balance for all wildlife.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series and funds whitetail research in Texas.

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