Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration program

We’re in the midst of dove season, which comes with rewards and responsibilities.

We want everybody to have a really good time and be safe while you’re out there. But, so many times we look around a dove area where people have hunted, and we see a lot of trash and debris that the hunter has carried out there.

Hunter education coordinator, Terry Erwin, says leaving trash behind can be harmful to animals that use the land.

Any debris that you took in with you, always take it out. Pick up your hulls especially. The expended shotgun shell hulls that are laying on the ground—cattle will pick those up and eat them. And, sometimes it will be very detrimental to that cattle’s well being.

Packing out whatever you packed in is just one part of being a responsible hunter. The daily bag limit for dove is 15 birds…but what if you shoot your limit and can’t find one of the birds?

If you actually happen to shoot a dove and you can’t find him, although you may only bring home fourteen doves, the one that you didn’t find—let that be part of your bag limit.

Improving your skills and hunting with man’s best friend is all part of responsible hunting.

Always practice and home your shot-gunning skills, and always use a good retriever dog that will help you find that bird so that it’s not wounded and lost.

Find hunting information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Sport fish and Wildlife Restoration program…supports our series and is funded by your purchase of hunting and fishing equipment and motorboat fuel…For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and the Sport Fish and Wildlife and the Wildlife Restoration Program

Hunting season is here. And while the last thing a hunter wants to think about is a problem in the field, it pays to be prepared.

That means making sure you have everything that’s available that you need even for a short outing, and then always hunt your plan.

Hunter Education coordinator, Terry Erwin also advises to make others aware of your plan.

In other words, let them know where you’re going to be, what time you intend to leave, and what time you intend to return. If you don’t get back during that specified time, then they know to come looking for you.

Hunters should never go into the field alone; they should have a way to communicate with their partners, either by cell phone or two-way radios. And then there are the maps.

So always keep a topographical map and mark the positions on it of where you’re going to be. If an accident were to happen, and you would need help, always have a ranch map, or have someone who knows the ranch location…because if you’re out in stand number 27, and an accident happens, who in the world is going to know where stand number 27 is? So, have a topo map with the stand locations, and easy access—or a map to get directions for the emergency services to get there if at all needed.

Of course, we hope you never need those services. Find hunting safety information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

Our show…receives support from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration program…funded by your purchase of hunting and fishing equipment and motorboat fuel…For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas parks and Wildlife and the Wildlife Restoration Program

A drought should end when it starts to rain, right? Well, not necessarily.

This is a major drought we’re in right now. A lot of people think it’s just right now. No it started three years ago.

That’s J. David Bamberger. Two streams at his fifty-five hundred acre ranch dried up ten months ago. At his ranch, Bamberger has created water trapping systems that help make efficient use of water. But even with his conservation system, he couldn’t keep the streams alive.

So, Bamberger says, when the rain cuts back, people need to cut back on their water and land use. Before the drought, Bamberger had two hundred and twenty-five cows on his land. He keeps selling them and now has only sixty-five.

Part of our mission here is to say to landowners, “You can have your cattle. You can have your sheep, your goats, horses. You can be a farmer. You can be a rancher. And you can be a protector of all the species. It’s just being able to manage your land and read natures’ signals and signs that she gives to you.”

Bamberger says he’ll need a lot more rain before his streams flow again.

We’d probably have to have sustained rain up in the twenty to thirty inches in order to get back to that.

…and that could be a while.

That’s our show…with research and writing help from Gretchen Mahan. The Wildlife Restoration program supports our Series. For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

A tree is a living history book. By analyzing its rings, researchers can determine the climate conditions of each year the tree was alive.

Malcolm Cleaveland is a professor emeritus of geosciences at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He and a team of researchers are trying to determine the climate patterns of central Texas.

On a recent day, they take samples from bald cypress trees in Guadalupe River State Park.

[Sounds of collecting samples]

That’s the researchers boring holes into the trees. It takes a while to collect the samples.

[Sounds of collecting samples]

Some of the trees aren’t old enough. Others, like this one have tree rot.

Well, Richard, thank you for trying…it’s all I can do…We have now bored this thing from almost every conceivable angle.

Cleaveland says if the results show that long droughts are fairly common, it will re-emphasize the need for water conservation.

These people who say we don’t need to conserve water cause we can pump as much as we want to out of the aquifer, they’re crazy. That’s the height of insanity. If we experienced a drought like the mega drought like 40 years of almost continuous hard drought pumping ground water would be an end game that would not work.

That’s our show. We had research and writing help from Gretchen Mahan. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

[Whooping crane calls]

Last winter, twenty-three out of two hundred and seventy whooping cranes died after a decline in blue crab and wolfberries, two of the crane’s main food sources.

Tom Stehn is the whooping crane coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. He says the decline is linked to two sources: drought and diversion of Texas rivers.

The human consumption of water has been increasing annually as the population of South Texas grows. This is a very critical issue for the bays that in some way we need to figure out a mechanism so sufficient freshwater inflows reach the bays to keep them productive.

Stehn says the fate of the whooping crane could rest in the hands of Texans.

There are management actions that people will have to do such as conserve water. And those are the choices that Texans have to make.

And many new threats are coming onto the scene.

As issues get worse for the whooping cranes, inflow issues, housing development issues, wind energy development, possibly taking away habitat from the cranes in migration. There’s a lot of threats out there right now, so I’m really leery of how the whooping cranes are going to do in the future.

The good news is there are sixty-one nesting pairs of cranes, which make some researchers hopeful that the population will increase next year.

That’s our show…with research and writing help from Gretchen Mahan. For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m

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