Passport to Texas

Manmade habitat for freshwater fish.

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This is Passport to Texas

The Lone Star State is revered for its exceptional sport fishing opportunities.

To preserve and enhance these destinations, a recent project at Lake Sulfur Springs experiments with nontraditional materials and designs to create artificial habitat.

Fish need habitat and structure in general.

Tim Bister is a District Fisheries Biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife

Even in reservoirs that left timber standing, over time, that timber in the water breaks down and the habitat for the fish declines. We’ve done work with Christmas trees in the past but the PVC that we’re using in the structures we’re building today are going to last for many, many years

One design for artificial habitat involves using simple, materials like PVC pipe and corrugated plastic drainpipe. Biologists and volunteers use the PVC to build a four-foot cube-shaped framework, and then weave and secure the drainpipe to it; it’s not much to look at, but it creates a nest-like structure.

Kody Corrin is the state director for Bass Unlimited and a restoration project volunteer

Somebody that doesn’t really know would think that we’re just piecing recycled garbage together, and we’re really not. We’re actually providing good habitat for the fish.

The Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Is this the size fish Lake Bois d’ Arc can look forward to producing?

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This is Passport to Texas

Lake Bois d’ Arc, a new reservoir project 70 miles northeast of Dallas, may be the future hot spot for trophy largemouth bass

One of the main things we are doing is establishing some nursery ponds that we can come into and introduce some genetically superior largemouth bass strains that have the potential for growth into that trophy status over eight pounds or so.

Dan Bennett is a natural resources specialist with Parks and Wildlife

Those are Florida strain Largemouth bass and we are hoping that this is going to be the first opportunity to come into a new reservoir with some of those ShareLunker offspring that are produced at our Freshwater Center in Athens. The ShareLunker are fish over 13 pounds and larger that have been donated to our selective breeding program.

ShareLunkers are fish with proven genetic potential to reach a trophy size.

So we are hoping that those fish we stocked in those nursery ponds come through that program. If that’s the case, we should be able to track those fish long term. Once this reservoir has existed for eight or ten years, we may be seeing some large fish caught by anglers over there that we can then genetically trace them back to a particular lineage that may have originated from that hatchery down in Athens.

The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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

Image courtesy www.fanninwater.org

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Lake Bois d’ Arc is a 16,000-acre reservoir under construction in northeast Fannin County, scheduled for completion in 2022.

From a fisheries biologist perspective, it’s particularly exciting to get in on the ground floor of establishing a fishery in a new lake like this; not something that many of our biologist have had the opportunity to do.

Dan Bennett is a natural resources specialist with parks and Wildlife. Anglers may look forward to a lake with variety of sportfish; Bennett’s work will make sure of it.

The north Texas municipal water district has helped us identify four ponds that will eventually be flooded by the reservoir to come in and establish some small-scale fisheries or nursery ponds to be able to introduce both forage fish and ultimately genetically superior largemouth bass; and [then] pre-stock those ponds, which we’re planning on doing this year. [This will give] those fish a little bit of an edge or a boost before the lake fills so they’ll be year or two old and more or less adult fish that are ready to spawn.

Once the reservoir opens to the public, anglers will have another productive Texas fishery to enjoy.

Our goal is to do everything in our power to establish fish populations in those lakes and try our best to make them the best they possibly can be.

The Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Male Black-capped vireo.

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This is Passport to Texas

Not long ago the tiny masked bird known as the Black-capped Vireo nearly became extinct. The US Fish and Wildlife Service listed the species as endangered in 1987. But rigorous habitat recovery efforts have finally changed that listing.

Good news for the Black-capped Vireo is that it was recently delisted.

Cliff Shackelford is a state ornithologist at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Now we’re in a phase of what we call the post-delisting monitoring. So Parks and Wildlife is involved in continuing the count of Black-capped vireos to make sure that the numbers are still steady and increasing but not decreasing.

Cliff believes we’ve become better at understanding what makes a healthy Hill Country ecosystem.

I think the one thing our agency has learned is better deer management. We’ve relayed that to a lot of our landowners that we work with, and you can drive around the Hill Country and see who’s doin’ it right. But I think that’s the big thing is finding that balance of where you can have your agriculture, your deer, and your Black-capped Vireos and everybody lives in harmony, and we’ve found that sweet spot and it’s really working.

Now it’s up to us to hand down our lessons learned to the next generation so that the Black-capped Vireo is never endangered again.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

Bobcats serve an ecosystem function.

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According to the US Census Bureau, the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area leads the nation in population growth. But this growth has fragmented wildlife habitat, and as a result wildlife have become more visible. Now sightings of one particular species has citizens concerned.

There have been some neighborhoods in the DFW area that have seen a lot of bobcats.

Richard Heilbrun is the urban wildlife program leader at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

If you’re in an urban area and you happen to see a bobcat, the most important thing you can do is to stop and enjoy the moment. Keep your distance. Take a photo, but don’t approach it. The bobcat will probably run away.

To answer growing public inquiry, Texas Parks and Wildlife partnered with Utah State University to capture and study urban bobcats.

We caught 12 bobcats in the middle of the metroplex and we radio-collared 10 of them. And we followed them for a year. We found out that bobcats are good at living in the city. They use greenbelts and golf courses, cemeteries, river corridors, and when you stitch all those habitats together they actually form a functioning ecosystem for a wide variety of wildlife.

Understanding urban bobcats is an important first step in achieving a conflict-free coexistence with humans.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series and funds bobcat research in Texas.

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