Passport to Texas

Bolivar Peninsula after Ike 2008, Image from http://www.srh.noaa.gov

Conservation: Ike's Hidden Damage, 2 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Texas lost 8-thousand acres of submerged oyster habitat when Hurricane Ike blew into the gulf in 2008. Some reefs will restore naturally; other will receive some help.

24- We are trying to accelerate that that recovery effort by putting some the materials down to allow new oysters to settle on. We also worked closely with the commercial industry and got them involved in pulling their dredges up with bags off of them across some of these reefs that were marginally covered up, and to pull the shell back to the surface to provide that substrate for young oysters to attach to and start growing.

Lance Robinson from coastal fisheries wrote the story. Ike pushed saltwater and debris 15-20 miles inland, which decimated saltmarsh habitat – habitat that’s a marine nursery for sport and commercial species. Restoration work is ongoing.

12—And it took several weeks just for heavy equipment to get into the marshes to remove the mountains of debris before we could get in and assess what the other impacts were. And at that point it was just gut-wrenching.

As bad as the damage after Ike, Robinsons says it could have been worse.

13—…both from a human impact and a natural resource impact had the storm tracked a little bit farther to the north. It would have brought the eye farther into the bay, and we would have seen a much more devastating impact.

Lance Robinson’s story about the “Hidden Damage of Ike” appears in the June issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration project supports our series.

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

Image from National Weather Service

Conservation: Ike's Hidden Damage, 1 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Few will forget the images from 2008 of the devastation to Galveston Island by Hurricane Ike. An article in the June 20-13 issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine details the damage from Ike we did not see.

06- The article focuses on the losses of some of the invaluable habitat associated with Galveston Bay.

Including submerged oyster habitat. Lance Robinson from coastal fisheries wrote the piece. The hurricane deposited sediment on top of 8-thousand acres of oyster reefs in Galveston Bay. That’s nearly half of the consolidated oyster habitat within the system.

24—That is a huge loss of a valuable resource. Not only from the commercial fishing aspect to it, but for the ecosystem services that they provide that a lot of people don’t really recognize or really see. Such as: water filtration, providing habitat for other fish and crabs and other organisms that are associated with structures. Sort of like an oasis in a desert.

A single adult oyster filters water at a rate of about 50 gallons a day, improving ecosystem water quality.

10—The wastewater treatment plants within Houston filter the same amount of water as a hundred and thirty acres of oyster reef; we lost 8-thousand acres of those reefs.

Restoring the reefs; that’s tomorrow.

Support provided by Ram Trucks. Doing what’s right and good regardless of the degree of difficulty — takes guts. Those are the people who build Ram trucks. RAM.

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

Black Bear image by Alan Vernon

Conservation/Wildlife: Black Bears in Texas, 2 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Louisiana Black bear is long gone from East Texas, although, small populations exist in its home state. Black bears we might see in NE Texas likely come from Oklahoma and Arkansas.

10- And they are not Louisiana bears. Bears in Oklahoma and Arkansas are probably the sub species Americana or just the plain American Black Bear.

But they’re welcome in Texas just the same, says Dave Holdermann, a wildlife diversity biologist in Tyler. TPW’s management goal is to manage natural re-colonization of the species in NE Texas.

15— And one of the things that we’re doing to support that approach is we monitor black bear sightings – mostly coming in from the public. And we monitor those very closely, and scour them very well, to be sure they are legitimate sightings.

Holdermann encourages the public to contact the wildlife division with black bear sightings at any of its regional offices.

27 — We look for and ask early in the interview [with the person], whether or not they have physical or photographic evidence. Beyond that, we look at details of the observation; how close was the person? What exactly did they see? How many bears were there? Give us the locality as close as you can. By the way, it wouldn’t necessarily have to be a photo of the bear. We might use hair as evidence, or a track.

Find more information about reporting your black bear sighting at passporttotexas.org: Call Dave Holderman with your black bear sighting at 903-566-1626 (ext. 209)

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

Louisiana black bear cub, image courtesy www.edf.org

Conservation/Wildlife: Black Bears in Texas, 1 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By 1900, Louisiana black bear were as good as gone from East Texas.

15- About that time, or in the late 1800s, as East Texas became more and more settled, black bears were essentially killed out by unregulated hunting and the expansion of farms, towns, cities, roads, etc.

Dave Holdermann is a wildlife diversity biologist working out of Tyler, who keeps track of this federally threatened species.

11— Today we see a few bears venturing out of neighboring states back into Texas, but we have no indication that there’s a breeding population of black bears in East Texas.

The bears entering Texas from neighboring states are likely the sub species Americana or American Black Bear. Parks and Wildlife will carefully monitor and manage natural colonization of the species in East Texas.

22— If bears come into this region – most likely from Arkansas or Oklahoma – we’re going to monitor that process and attempt to deal with any problems that might arise between bears and people. But, we would not intercede, necessarily, to eliminate those bears. So, we would allow that natural colonization process.

How you can help biologists keep track of black bears in Texas – that’s tomorrow.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration project supports our series.

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

Image courtesy of http://blue.utb.edu/jasonproject/photos.html

Wetlands: Bahia Grande, 2 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Cut off from gulf waters, Bahia Grande, a unit of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, changed from productive tidal wetland to nuisance dust bowl. The tide started to turn for this basin with the new millennium.

13 – It was not until 2000 when the Fish and Wildlife Service acquired the land surrounding the Bahia Grande Basin that you could start doing something—because the Fish and Wildlife Service was very supportive of restoring the area.

John Wallace Deputy Project Leader South Texas Refuge Complex says the process of re-hydrating Bahia Grande continues.

13 – Restoring ten thousand acres takes quite awhile. We have had to go through an environmental assessment—public hearings—to just make sure what we were planning to do in restoring it was not going to cause some kind of impact.

Wallace says when fully restored, humans and wildlife will benefit.

21 – Besides just reducing the blowing dust, it’s going to increase the number of marine organisms in the area: anything from larval fin fish, to shrimp, to blue crabs that are already in the area. And when we have it fully restored it’s going to do nothing more than become a nice estuarine area to benefit wildlife.

The Wildlife and Sport fish Restoration Program supports our series and provides funding for wetland conservation through the Private Lands Enhancement Program.

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