Passport to Texas

Baby Attwater’s Prairie Chickens At Fossil Rim

Assisted Living: Attwater's Prairie Chickens Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

We all need help sometimes. And in the case of the endangered Attwater’s Prairie Chicken, they’re getting it in the form of captive breeding programs, including one at the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glen Rose.

Adding birds from the captive breeding program has allowed us to keep birds in the wild. Without the captive breeding program this species, undoubtedly, would have been extinct by now.

Biologists estimate there are fewer than 100 Attwater’s Prairie Chickens in existence today. Mike Morrow is a wildlife biologist at the Attwater’s Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge in Eagle Lake. The juvenile prairie chickens at Fossil rim are color banded and radio collared in preparation for release onto the refuge.

How many other species can we watch go extinct, before it starts making a difference the ability of the world to support us as a human species.

Juvenile birds take a long ride to the refuge and are kept in an outdoor enclosure until they’ve acclimated to their new habitat. After two weeks in their pen, they’re released onto the refuge.

Biologist Morrow says he knows not all the birds they release will survive, but those that do, represent the future. He says Texas Parks and Wildlife and partners will continue to build the population with wild birds. And that’s where he says we place the hope for the recovery of the species.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Attwater’s Prairie Chicken

Most Endangered Bird in North America Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The most endangered bird in North America is a chicken. No, it’s not your ordinary farmyard fowl. It’s the extraordinary Attwater’s Prairie Chicken—a species unique to Texas coastal prairies. Yet, over the past two decades fewer than 100 individuals have been reported in the wild.

For a species that only lives on average two years—that’s a very bad place to be.

Mike Morrow is a wildlife biologist at the Attwater’s Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge in Eagle Lake. He works with biologist Rebecca Chisholm.

You know, they’re [prairie chickens] an endangered species all over the rest of the country and the world. But this one here, lives only in Texas.

The birds are part of our natural heritage. At the refuge, Morrow and Chisholm work together to give the Prairie Chicken a chance at survival, which includes building predator deterrent fences around nest sites.

The idea of this predator deterrent fence Is to deflect predators away from the nest area so that hopefully they won’t find the nest and destroy it.

The fence doubles the chance of survival for the hens and chicks. And when there are fewer than 100 members in a population, you take those odds.

Working with—arguably the most endangered bird in North America—has its ups and downs. I mean, sometimes, it’s a little bit disappointing. Things don’t go quite as well as you want, but it’s also rewarding when things do. So I think everyone would agree that it’s worth it.

Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

Beautiful but deadly lionfish. Image from Harte Research Institute.

Fighting the Threat of Lionfish in Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

With amazing appetites and reproductive abilities, lionfish are a growing threat to native Texas marine life.

Everybody agreed lionfish was a problem, but we weren’t working together. And that’s always a challenge, because this is not going to be fixed by biologists.

Leslie Hartman, Matagorda Bay Program Leader, said during last year’s Lone Star Lionfish symposium organizations worked together to address this issue.

We brought together engineers, biologists, legal professionals, including enforcement and lawyers. We brought in oil, shrimpers…academicians. We brought in a roboticist expert. All this, because you cannot fix the lionfish issue with a single, non-existent silver bullet.

Participants developed seven parameters of need, including funding, research, and regulation—and assigned each one an approximate cost and pragmatic rating.

Using these approximate costs and the pragmatic rating, things should float to the top. [We can say] this is a really good value, and it’s really practical. So this would be something that we would rate high. All of this is to create a unified state plan. And we’re going to be able to disseminate it to the universities, and the engineers, and the regulators, and say: ‘this is what a whole bunch of experts determined as being the most appropriate way to go about this, so that it can be most effective.’

The Second Annual Lone Star Lionfish Symposium is February 15 & 16.

The Sport fish restoration program supports our series.

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

Pretty but deadly to native aquatic species.

The Problem with Lionfish Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The lionfish, native to the Pacific Ocean, is a common species in the aquarium trade.

But a couple of them have gotten loose

Leslie Hartman—Matagorda Bay Program Leader—says lionfish wasted no time getting busy making more of their kind.

They get to reproductive age in one year. They breed every four days. They can be found in an inch of water. They can be found in 12-hunderd feet of water. These guys are really super successful. And they’re Americanized. They’re willing to eat past the point when they’re full, until they get fat.

And what they eat are native marine species.

We’re really concerned about how many of our fish, shrimp and crabs their eating. In the Caribbean—and they’ve been there quite a number of years before us—a single Lionfish on a little coral reef, consumed 80% of that season’s young.

Because of their voracious appetites, their reproductive prowess, and the fact that they haven’t any predators…

We’re really concerned long term for the effect it’s going to have on all of our fisheries. Whether it’s the commercial shrimp and blue crab, whether it’s the recreational snapper, redfish, trout—we just know we need to be concerned.

Tomorrow Leslie Hartman tells us about what’s being done to prevent lionfish from becoming a problem in Texas.

The Sport fish restoration program supports our series.

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

Derelict crab traps collected from Chocolate Bayou.

2017 Crab Trap Cleanup Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Commercial crab fishermen use baited wire traps to lure their prey. Sometimes traps end up missing due to storms, or they are simply discarded.

These traps continue ghost fishing for months or years—capturing fish and other marine creatures, including endangered species—taking an environmental and economic toll on gulf fisheries.

In February of 2002, Texas Parks and Wildlife conducted the first abandoned crab trap removal program; and 2017 marks the 15th cleanup. During a 10-day period this month, volunteers like you, will join Texas Parks and Wildlife staff and partners, in removing derelict traps.

This year’s cleanup is February 17th through the 26th. The big cleanup “push” is Saturday, February 18 from 10 to noon. This is the only time citizens may remove these traps from gulf waters.

More than 32,000 derelict crab traps have been removed from the gulf since 2002, saving tens of thousands of marine organisms.

Texas Parks and Wildlife and partners facilitate roughly 20 sites coast wide and provide disposal facilities, and supply volunteers with tarps, gloves, crab trap hooks and other items.

To volunteer for this year’s program visit the Abandoned Crab Trap Removal page on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Sport Fish restoration Program supports our series.

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