Passport to Texas

Sheryl Smith Rodgers, from www.commanderben.com

Conservation: Master Naturalist, 1 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

They say you never forget your first love. For writer her first love had eight legs.

07 – Spiders are my first love, and from there I grew into plants and animals.

Eager to fully understand the natural world around her, Smith Rodgers completed Texas Master Naturalist training.

20 – I’m with the Highland lakes chapter, which is based out of Burnet. So you learn about your own ecosystems in your region. I’m learning about the plants that are indigenous to this area. Whereas, if you live on the coast, you’ll be learning about those kinds of plants. So, we’re all learning what’s important to our area.

Trainees learn about living things in their ecosystem, as well as their region’s geology, hydrology and more. After receiving certification, Smith Rodgers says Master Naturalists volunteer in their communities where needed.

23 – Volunteers go to ranches and survey the plant species, and they offer land management advice. In a city, volunteers might go into a city park and create a butterfly garden. For instance, here in Blanco – at Blanco State Park – the Master Naturalists help put on program every May for third graders. They do so many different things [laughs].

Tomorrow: Learn how to become a Texas Master Naturalist.

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

Texas Mixed Border Homeowner Inspiration Garden; Image from www.wildflower.org

Nature: Wildlflowers and Other Native Plants Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Texas roadsides will be awash in colorful wildflowers soon. Dr. Damon Waitt, senior botanist at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, says these and other native plants have a place in the built landscape as well as nature’s landscape.

61—Natives provide really important ecosystem services for local wildlife, pollinators. They filter storm water and rainwater, so they provide all these services to the ecosystem, and they can provide similar services in the built landscape, and reduce things like water use, pesticide use and fertilizer use. In addition, they have the aesthetic qualities that we want people to learn to appreciate, so they’re not looking for that next exotic ornamental—that they
‘re more interested in finding that next native plant that looks great and functions perfectly in their environment.

That’s something we’re really trying to fight—that concept that if you’re a native plant enthusiast, then your yard must look wild and unkempt. At the wildflower center, we model different design styles using native plants, and you can use native plants in very high designs and very formal designs if that’s the look you’re going for.

Find plants that are right for you at wildflower.org.

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

Crab Trap Cleanup Art Morris, © Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

Angling: Ghost Fishing Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

There are ghosts in the gulf that silently trap and kill thousands of marine species annually.

09— They are a perpetual trapping machine. When something gets caught in there, it has nothing to eat and it dies, and it becomes bait and it attracts other fish and other organisms.

That’s Art Morris…ghost buster. Actually, he’s a biologist with Coastal Fisheries. The entities he’s after are abandoned crab traps…adrift in the gulf…ghost fishing.

09—And one of the key things about this, because they’re targeting for crabs, that’s the number one species that we see—the targeted organisms is what we’re losing to these derelict traps.

Weather and vandalism are the primary reasons why traps end up adrift, indiscriminately ensnaring crustaceans and other sea life. Morris says since 2002, more than 29-thousand of these A.W.O.L. traps have been removed from Texas bays.

12—A single trap can kill 26 blue crabs per trap per year. And we can extrapolate those numbers out and we estimate somewhere in the area of half million blue crabs are saved through this program alone—or have to date.

Morris hasn’t removed these traps alone—he’s had a lot of help from volunteers during annual crab trap clean ups. Your chance to help rid the gulf of ghost fishing happens next month… details tomorrow.

That’s our show…with support from the Sport Fish Restoration Program…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Buffalo Soldiers © Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

History: Buffalo Soldiers as Unsung Heroes Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Buffalo soldiers were heroes in their time, yet their accomplishments, seldom taught in classrooms, leave many young African American students, like Greg
McClanahan, with a limited sense of their history.

09—They didn’t teach us nothing in school but that we were slaves. They didn’t teach us that we were heroes or nothing. In history, all you ever heard about was slaves this, and slaves that. You didn’t hear about no black heroes.

McClanahan attended public school in Kerrville, where he met Buffalo Soldier reenactors from Parks and Wildlife.

16—What we are doing is taking the legacy of the Buffalo Soldier into the cities and into the schools. And we feel that sharing this story, that we can instill some pride and some resolve in them.

Ken Pollard is a 2006 inductee into the National Cowboys of Color hall of Fame. He said he found out about the Buffalo Soldiers as an adult, but wished he’d known about them earlier.

20—My relatives and kinfolk were cowboys, man. We didn’t have any black cowboys or soldiers, you know, to really look up to. For me, to have the black heroes there when I was growing up, that sense of pride would have been instilled in me. But if I had grown up with that—they would have been my heroes.

Find information about Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Community Outreach on the Texas Parks and Wildife website.

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

Buffalo Soldiers © Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

History: Buffalo Soldiers Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

[SFX…military maneuvers] Establish, fade, roll under actuality & script.

[singing] I was once a captured slave. Now I’m just a black man who came to be….[fade singing and roll under script]

In the 19th Century, Black men who served in the 9th and 10th Regiments of Cavalry and 24th and 25th Regiments
of Infantry of the United States Army were …

I am a Buffalo Soldier! [song ends]

The Native Americans whom they fought during the Indian Wars gave troops the name because of their hair texture, courage, and ferocity in battle.

05—He feared and respected the buffalo. And he learned to fear and respect the black soldier as well.

That’s Buffalo Soldier reenactor, John Olivera, who says Buffalo soldiers played a major role in settling Texas.

12—Seventy-five percent of the soldiers that settled this area were Buffalo Soldiers. The only white men that were with them were the commanding officers. Almost all of the forts were manned and built by Buffalo Soldiers.

Texas Parks & Wildlife Department offers Texas Buffalo Soldier Outdoor Educational Programs. Find their schedule on the Parks and Wildlife website.

11—The Buffalo Soldiers fought not only the Indians, and outlaws, but racism and prejudice. We had a job to do, and we done it.

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