Passport to Texas

Landowner Incentive Program

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The Landowner Incentive Program, or LIP, is a way for private landowners to partner with Texas Parks and Wildlife to achieve conservation goals on their
property…

08-…to meet the goals of the private landowners for their property, as well as conservation goals for species of concern.

Arlene Kalmbach coordinates the LIP program for the agency.

16-When we add the conservation layer of their land management plan, we’re often assisting them with erosion control, invasive species control. In some cases prescribed burns. It really varies because every property’s unique.

As 95% of Texas land is in private hands, landowners play a vital role in maintaining the state’s natural resources. Implementing conservation practices can
enhance a landowner’s management goals.

05-Conservation can often enhance the property’s value for the landowner.

Tomorrow: Getting started with the landowner Incentive program.

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

Unwrap the Wild, image courtesy www.mattskoog.com

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This is Passport to Texas

Nature is a gift we give ourselves the moment we step outside. Share the beauty and Unwrap the Wild; give the gift of the Texas outdoors to others w/a state park pass.

12-This is the second year that we’ve launched Unwrap the Wild. And it’s an opportunity to give back to Texas by supporting your state parks, and to provide friends, family, loved ones–or yourself–with an annual parks pass.

Anne (Annie) Brown is executive director with the Texas Parks and Wildlife foundation, the official non-profit partner of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. During Unwrap the Wild a park pass only costs sixty-five dollars.

12-Which is five dollars off what they usually cost. In addition, they can be purchased online and mailed directly here from our offices in Dallas to individuals for a holiday gift.

Ninety state parks–many within a 90 minute drive or less for most of us–provide pass holders outdoor adventures that are close, convenient, and available a
full 365 days.

13-We launch our Unwrap the Wild on November third, and it will run through December 19th, to make sure that we can get all the park passes to homes before the holiday is here.

Pass holders have a year from the day they redeem their certificate to use their State Parks Pass for waived entry fees for themselves and all the guests in their vehicle. Find details at tpwf.org.

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

Merlin showing free-tailed bat to visitors at Bracken Cave.

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Merlin Tuttle was a curious kid destined to become a scientist. He lived near a bat cave in high school and started making observations.

13- I found that the bats came in the spring and the fall, but were not there any other time of year. Yet, when I identified them, the field guides that I had said that this species of bat lived in one cave year round.

He wanted this misinformation corrected.

16-So, I caught some. I actually made specimens of a couple of them so that I could prove that I had what I said I had. And convinced my mother, just as a teenager, to drive me to the Smithsonian so I could tell the guys that wrote the books that there was something wrong.

So began a 55 year career that’s taken Dr. Tuttle around the world studying bats. He’s engages in hands on conservation and public education. One goal: remove the public’s fear of bats.

26-People hear that bats are dangerous–they’re going to cause you to get sick with some terrible malady. But in reality, bats have one of the finest safety records of any animal on our planet of living safely with humans. People like me, I’ve studies bats for 55 years now on every continent where they exist, spending literally hundreds if not thousands of hours actually in caves surrounded by millions of bats. And I’m still healthy!

Merlin Tuttle’s written about his life with bats in THE SECRET LIVES OF BATS: My Adventures with the World’s Most Misunderstood Mammals. It comes out this week.

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

Bobwhite Quail

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Late winter through early summer rainfall created ideal breeding conditions for quail in most parts of Texas.

14-We’re getting reports from all over from our staff that they’ve not seen this many quail in several years in some places–in other places, in decades. We’re talking about a species that has the potential to boom. And I think in some part of the state that’s what we’re seeing.

Before this, quail were in decline throughout much of the state, says upland game bird program leader, Robert Perez. Currently, large broods of chicks in all age classes dot the landscape.

07-This tells us that the window of opportunity was wide [due to abundant resources], and that when bobwhite hens had a nest failure, they were able to start again.

Perez is quick to point out that drought, alone, is not the cause of quail decline. Habitat loss is another factor.

23-And that’s where Parks and Wildlife has gone to great lengths to work with partners and landowners and wildlife cooperatives to bring quail back. And it’s important to remember that the rangelands of south Texas and the rangelands of the Rolling Plains, up into the Panhandle–quail are there because its big open spaces, and the land use is [mostly] compatible with bobwhite quail. And when the weather is great, we see that response. But, in other parts of the state,
we’ve really lost a lot of the available habitat.

Find information about quail restoration on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Bobwhite quail

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Quail’s short life span makes them vulnerable to extended drought.

07-During dry years there’s just not enough moisture to hatch out eggs, and there aren’t enough insects to really feed chicks and raise a brood.

Robert Perez is upland game bird program leader at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

16-So, they shrink down on the landscape and then they’re waiting on rain. How long do quail live? Their average lifespan is only several months. A better way to look at it is: each year’s crop–everything that’s produced in the summer–by the following spring, anywhere from 70 to 80% will be gone. They will be consumed, basically.

Texas eventually got some rain; the timing of the rainfall was as important the rain itself.

26-Late winter there was enough moisture to produce the forbes: all the plants that quail need to eat during January and February; those were available pretty much everywhere, and that gets those birds into breeding condition. And then as we moved into spring, it continued to rain. There was a flush of vegetation, lots of insects, soil moisture. And it kept raining intermittently: off and on, off and on, off and on–all the way up to about the second week of July for most of the entire state.

And that created a huge window for quail to breed, which, hunters in most areas of the state will notice when the season opens at the end of the month, says Perez.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program Program supports our series.

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