Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Calling a brown-headed cowbird a cowbird, is a misnomer as far as biologist Marsha May is concerned.

05—I think they should be called bison birds, and not cowbirds, because they evolved with the bison.

The bird’s inclination to lay its eggs in other birds’ nests can potentially cause the decline of species with small populations, such as the endangered Black-capped Vireo. Additional species are also affected.

19—Woodland species are now being impacted by brown-headed cowbirds, because we’ve fragmented the woods. Previously those woodland species were protected by the woods. Now that it’s fragmented, the cowbirds are getting into that habitat, and they’re parasitizing birds that have never historically been parasitized before.

The cowbird is in the blackbird family. The male has a black body and brown head, while the female is mottled brown and gray. Now that you know what they look like, with certification, you can intervene on songbirds’ behalf.

11—You can actually become certified in Texas to trap for cowbirds, and that’s mainly during the breeding season, between March first and May thirty-first. And, mainly you’re trying to trap the females.

Find certification information at passporttotexas.org, and get ready for spring cowbird trapping.

That’s our show… we receive support from the Wildlife Restoration Program… funded by your purchase of shooting and hunting equipment.

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

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This is Passport to Texas

The Texas Legacy Project, Stories of Courage and Conservation, hits bookstores and online booksellers this month, with a forward by Texas parks and Wildlife Executive Director, Carter Smith.

10—He brings the kind of diversity of experience, the passion, the concern, the care for Texas natural resources that we hope will bring other people in to see the book and try and learn from it.

David Todd is one of the book’s authors and a member of the Conservation History Association of Texas. The book features stories from a cross-section of our state’s most ardent conservationists.

10—We have interviews with a range of people: farmers,. Ranchers, fishermen, biologist, ornithologists, chemists, politicians, river guides, land owners…

The book began as an online archive at Texas legacy.org primarily featuring videos of people who shaped and influenced the protection of Texas natural resources.

20—We have about 60 people included in the book out of the 225 who are actually in the archive. What we’ve tried to do is find people who are maybe representative of a way of life or a kind of concern about the environment and hope that they act as sort of examples of what many, many other people throughout Texas have been working on.

Todd said that he hopes the book and website will inspire future generations of Texans to protect the precious natural resources of our state.

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

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This is Passport to Texas

In Galveston Bay, some volunteers are gardening oysters. But they’re not looking to eat their produce.

(Water sounds)…We’ve got to rinse off some of the muck.

Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist Bill Rodney pulls up one of the mesh bags that hang off some of the private piers in San Leon.

The pier owners filled these bags with oyster shells and put them in the water at the beginning of the summer. Now, they are teeming with crabs, shrimp, small fish and baby oyster.

Rodney says none of these little critters will be staying in the bags.

Probably in the late fall we’ll pull up all these bags and then we’ll take them out to the reefs that we built to give those little communities a jump start.

It’s like seeing the reef. These reefs aren’t far from shore or the avid anglers of San Leon.

This is a big fishing community. Their motto is they are a drinking community with a fishing problem. These reefs will create structure that attracts fish. By having the reefs close to their pier, they won’t have to go out so far to find fish, and hopefully it will improve the recreational fishing around here.

Volunteers can’t eat the oysters they grow because the water close to shore doesn’t meet water quality standards, but these oysters will help repopulate reefs in the rest of the bay. And if that’s the case, this fishing community is more than happy to help.

That’s our show… we had research and writing help from Gretchen Mahan…the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration program supports our series… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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This is Passport to Texas

On a recent day in East Galveston Bay, there are twelve boats driving back and forth in an area that is about the size of 70 football fields. Most of the boats are oyster and shrimping boats.

But Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist Jennie Rohrer (Roar) says they aren’t fishing today. They’re helping restore oyster reefs that were destroyed by Hurricane Ike two years ago.

These boats are pulling what we are calling bagless dredges over an existing oyster reef that was covered up from sediment from Hurricane Ike. So instead of actually pulling up the oysters from the bottom, they’re just bringing the shells from underneath the sediment up on to the top of the existing sediment.

Oyster larvae need to attach to a hard surface in order to grow. So biologists hope that by exposing the shells, oysters will attach to them and slowly reestablish the reefs.

And Rohrer says oysters are a crucial part of this community’s livelihood.

Galveston Bay is very important in oyster harvest. And so a lot of money, a lot of effort, and a lot of people are hired through the commercial fishing industry.

East Galveston Bay is currently closed to commercial fishing to let the oysters grow and reproduce. But if all goes well, in two years, the oysters here should be ready for the catch.

That’s our show… we had research and writing help from Gretchen Mahan…the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration program supports our series… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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This is Passport to Texas

In 2006, a massive wildfire swept through Amarillo, covering over 900,000 acres of land.

Despite concerns of habitat loss, Texas Tech University researchers recently discovered that quail populations have rebounded quite well.

Basically what we found was in two years post fire, we had normal quail movement, normal nesting success and normal survival of hens.

Head researcher Dr. Brad Dabbert says the research shows biologists need to keep monitoring quail, but they don’t need to worry too much.

It helps us to understand that if wildfires do occur and are large scale that we don’t necessarily need to panic about long-term reductions in populations.

He says, in the some areas that have a lot of vegetation, controlled wildfires can create good quail habitat.

Quail are considered to like areas that do have some bare ground below the canopy of plants. They like the weeds that are encouraged by fire at the right time of year.

And controlled fires can also lessen the possibility of a wildfire. Still, wildfires can be hard to predict. Like much of nature, we’re constantly learning how to live with and manage them while keeping people and wildlife safe and sound.

That’s our show… we had research and writing help from Gretchen Mahan…the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration program supports our series… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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