Passport to Texas

Guzzler on the Black Gasp Wildlife Management Area

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This is Passport to Texas

A guzzler is a rain catchment device. Collected rainwater gets funneled into a tank that feeds a water trough for wildlife.

As we all know, animals need water. Our annual rainfall is only around 11 inches a year. So we’re trying to supplement that water during dry periods.

Travis Smith is a biologist at the Black Gap Wildlife management area in Brewster County. So is Will Rhodes.

We’re in southern Brewster County which is in the Trans-Pecos region of Texas.

They build and maintain guzzlers on the Gap—45 so far—and see to the needs of wildlife on the management area.

We’re in the Chihuahuan Desert Ecosystem. The area is 103,000 acres or a little over. Black Gap is kind of in the middle of nowhere.

Next week the men explain and demonstrate guzzlers on a segment of the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS.

So this catchment consist of R-Panel in 12 foot lengths, which is connected to these 6 inch C-Purlins by…

Let’s stop there. Will’s going to tell us about purlins and pitch threads and storage tanks; it’s not sexy stuff. But it’s necessary when building guzzlers at Black Gap. And, so are wildlife cameras.

On these game cameras it’s triggered by motion. Usually that’s going to be wildlife coming in to get water from the guzzlers here.

Which means their efforts are successful. See the segment on Guzzlers next week on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV Series on PBS. The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Photo: City of Grand Prairie Parks and Recreation Department

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This is Passport to Texas

Photo-journalist Camille Wheeler discovered five urban jungles teaming with wildlife when she kayaked along their paddling trails.

I had this romantic notion that I was going to do all five of these trails by myself. I actually did do two of them by myself. [But] I actually wound up having the best time on the three trails that I did with groups.

She kayaked and in Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Houston, San Antonio and Pasadena…and wrote about it for the March issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine.

I felt like an explorer even in the middle of a group. I went out with the assurance that these paddling trails had been mapped and surveyed by a Texas Parks and Wildlife team. But, there was this sense of adventure traveling these waterways that were new to me.

Camille saw birds, fish, insects, and even alligators—all in the middle of densely populated urban areas. She says urban paddling trails offer close-in outdoor opportunities.

People like me can get our feet wet here in these urban areas, on these trails that are very safe and easy. And now that I have had a little bit of experience, and some very good guidance—my heart is beating fast at the thought of going back to these same trails that I’ve already traveled, and then going out a little bit farther and a little bit more into the country. And rekindling this love affair with water that is new for a middle-aged woman.

You’re never too old to experience something new. Read Camille Wheeler’s article, Gently Down the Stream, in the March issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

The Sport Fish restoration program supports our series.

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

Paddling in Texas

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This is Passport to Texas

Photo-journalist, Camille Wheeler, grew up in a farming and ranching family in West Texas, and remains a country girl at heart, despite living in the Capital City since the mid-1990s.

I didn’t grow up around very much water. So, while I was a country girl, I’ve always had a fascination with rivers and streams.

Given her fascination for flowing water, she wondered why she’d never explored Austin’s Lady Bird Lake.

So, about a year ago [in January], I went out—really for the first time by myself—on a kayak, on Lady Bird Lake. And the lake was just filled with all these wintering birds. And the double crested cormorant is one of my favorite birds in the world. There were so many of them, and I could paddle up close to them and take pictures. And I was like: Why have I not been doing this?

She discovered Lady Bird Lake is in Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Paddling Trails Program, which gave her an idea for an article. She shared the idea with TPW magazine’s editor, and the agency’s nature tourism manager.

We came up with this idea of me traveling around the state as a beginner [paddler] who has medium knowledge of birds, and putting the two things together for readers.

Read about it in the March issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine. On tomorrow’s show: how Camille Wheeler found the middle of nowhere in the middle of everywhere on an urban paddling trail.

That’s our show for today… Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

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