Passport to Texas

Landowner Incentive Program Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

With more than 95% of Texas’ land in private hands, it’s crucial that landowners participate in the protection, restoration and maintenance of our state.

Texas Parks and Wildlife wants to help with the Texas Landowner Incentive Program, or LIP.

LIP’s goal is to meet the needs of private, non-federal landowners that wish to enact good conservation practices on their lands, for the benefit of healthy terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

Landowners must apply for the program. The first step is to contact your local TPWD office and speak with a staff biologist. They will help with an ecological assessment of your land, review your goals, and provide you with information on the various incentive and assistance programs available.

LIP is a cost-share reimbursement program. Depending on the funding series, TPWD will contribute between 50% and 75% of a total project cost. The applicant is expected to contribute the balance; materials or in-kind services are acceptable match.

If together you and your biologist decide that the LIP program could help you meet your management and restoration goals, your biologist will help you to prepare and submit a project proposal packet. Find more information on the LIP program on the TPW website.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series, providing support for private lands initiatives.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

Technical Guidance for Landowners Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Subdivisions seemingly sprout from fields overnight, pushing wildlife to the fringes. People have to live somewhere, but so does wildlife—and wildlife was here first.

As more than 95% of Texas land is privately owned, it’s vital that landowners play an active role in conserving habitat for creatures great and small.

Texas Parks and Wildlife has dozens of biologists across the state that work with landowners to help them manage their properties for wildlife.

When thoughtfully managed, acres of “undeveloped” land support a wide variety of plant and animal communities, providing habitat for wildlife in tandem with opportunity for both consumptive and non-consumptive recreation.

Through the Private Lands and Habitat Program, landowners receive technical guidance to help them develop a wildlife management plan specific to their location and their goals; the service is free.

Find contact information for Technical Guidance Biologists or Private Lands Biologists near you on the TPW website.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Paddling on Caddo Lake

Caddo Lake Paddling Trail Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Gliding along the paddling trails on Caddo Lake in East Texas is at once intimate and humbling: mist dancing on the water; banks flanked by giant, moss-covered bald cypress; the chorus of birds; habitat teaming with diverse and abundant wildlife. It’s a special place.

It’s beyond words to describe how wonderful this place is.

Vanessa Adams worked as a resource specialist with parks and wildlife.

The paddling trails here on Caddo Lake will get you back into some habitat that is just not everywhere, it’s unique. It gets you into a place that you may have never seen before.

Marshall, Texas resident, and Caddo Lake paddling enthusiast, Sandra Phillips, says she feels close to the earth when she’s on this enigmatic lake.

You can’t find this well really anywhere else. All the network of canals and the swampyness of it.

Caddo Lake is different every season; Adams says paddlers need to return often to experience the full effect.

You gotta get out on the boat, you gotta get in the swamp and you really gotta sit down and you gotta sit and listen.

Find more information about Caddo Lake and discover other unique Texas paddling trails on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Sport Fish restoration program supports our series.

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

Yellow-legged Sandpiper observed at Hornsby Bend.

Wasteland to Birding Wonderland Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

On the second Saturday of every month, Eric Carpenter surveys birds with Travis Audubon, at Hornsby Bend, east of downtown Austin.

Hornsby is one of the better spots to bird in Central Texas.

Carpenter and cohorts have recorded more than 360 species of birds at the site over the years. Dr. Kevin Andersen runs the Center for Environmental Research at Hornsby; an unlikely place for the genteel activity of bird watching.

Hornsby Bend is the facility that recycles all of Austin’s sewage solids, which is a euphemism for poop.

Austin’s sewage and yard waste is recycled at this unique, 1200 acre site along 3.5 miles of the Colorado River.

There’s a farm and a bottomland forest, treatment ponds that are famous for birding. Many different things that we can use for environmental research.

Pathogens in the sludge are killed off naturally. Some solids, when mixed with recycled yard waste, become compost; the cleaned water goes into ponds, creating an environment attractive to wildlife and those who watch it — like photographer Greg Lasley.

Even though we’re right near the city of Austin, there’s an amazing variety of wildlife: butterflies, dragonflies, birds, reptiles and amphibians. My philosophy is if you just get out in nature and spend time looking, things show themselves to you.

That’s our show …for Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Wildscapes are beautiful and beneficial.

Landscaping for Wildlife Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Whether you have an apartment balcony or large backyard, you can take simple steps to help improve habitat for wildlife. It’s called “wildscaping.” Texas Parks and Wildlife provides online resources to help Texans begin landscaping their property for wildlife. And, really, you can start small. As small as a pot of native flowering plants.

The information can guide you with things like creating a humming-bird or butterfly garden; you can also find recommended plant lists for your part of the state.

Even a small patch of butterfly attracting flowers is a great way to start. Speaking from experience… there is nothing more magical than rolling up your driveway after work to see your garden alive with butterflies. Makes me smile every single time.

Essentially, what you’ll want to do is to provide food, water and shelter for the critters that come calling. And the more of this wildscape habitat that you provide, the more wildlife you’ll attract.

One of Texas Parks and Wildlife’s urban biologists, Kelly Simon, wrote an informative book on the subject, aptly titled: Texas Wildscapes: Gardening for Wildlife.

Also check out the calendar section of the Texas Parks and Wildlife website for classes, tours and demonstrations featuring wildscapes.

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