Passport to Texas

Spirula shells. Photo credit: Fritz Geller-Grimm

Benefits of Winter Beachcombing Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Before you sell seashells by the seashore, you first have to find them. Surprisingly, summer beachcombing may not yield the results you desire.

I feel the best time to go shelling is in the wintertime.

Paul Hammerschmidt is a lifelong shell collector and former coastal fisheries biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife. He says winter storms churn up the Gulf bottom, sending marine critters and their calciferous containments onto the beach. To improve your chances of finding a variety of intact shells, Hammerschmidt says stay clear of crowded beaches.

If you get a chance to go to some more isolated beaches, like down on Padres island, or something like that, where the population of humans is not quite so thick, you’ll have a much better chance of finding some really unusual shells.

Such as a pretty little shell called baby ears—which looks like…well…baby ears. Or, there’s another special shell worth searching for called spirula.

And it’s a coiled, snail-like shell. But it doesn’t belong to a snail—it belongs to a little squid. And it’s inside the squid, and when the squid dies, that little thing has a lot of chambers in it with gas, and it floats and washes up on the beach. Those are very pretty, bright white, and they’re very fragile, so you have to be careful with them.

This time of year, before it warms up, is a terrific time to go beach-combing.

That’s our show for today…remember: Life’s Better Outside.

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

Shells one might find on the Texas coast.

Shell Collecting Tips Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Nobody thinks twice about collecting shells from the beach. But I started to wonder if it’s really okay since beaches are public land.

It’s okay to collect shells. The ones that are broken and come apart, they create the sand that’s out there, but there is no law against it [collecting].

Paul Hammerschmidt is a lifelong shell collector, and former coastal fisheries biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife. He says collect responsibly to avoid creating problems for the environment or marine animals.

I highly recommend that you only take shells that are from dead animals—not live animals.

How can you determine if something is still alive? In the case of the popular sand dollar, small spines cover the shells of living animals…so look for smooth, spineless shells. If, like me, you’ve never found a sand dollar on the beach—there’s good reason for it.

I think it’s because everybody wants to get a sand dollar. And, too, they’re another very fragile shell. And when the waves are strong, they’ll get broken up, and you’ll just see fragments of them. A lot of times, the best time to find a sand dollar, is after a storm—and then very early in the morning—before anybody else gets out on the beach.

When and where to go shelling on tomorrow’s show.

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

TEXAS CITY Y OIL SPILL RESPONSE TEAM GROUP PHOTO

TPW TV: Oil Spill Team Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On March 22nd, 2014 two vessels collided in the Houston ship channel. And that’s when the TPW Oil Spill Response team sprang to action.

[Winston Denton] There was a timing issue with an incoming inbound ship and a barge and tug crossing the channel.

[Steven Mitchell] The crew members started reporting that they had oil leaking from the barge.

[Rebbecca Hensley] We had about 170,000 gallons of fuel that was spilled into the ship channel.

[Don Pitts] Any large spill like this, we get notified by the Coast Guard or the General Land Office to come and assist in the role of Natural Resource Advisors.

[Heather Biggs] Since it was a large event, we did pull people from Austin, from Corpus, even down from Brownsville we had folks coming in to help us.

[Angela Schrift] We coordinated, figured out what we’d need. Got the materials together and got down to the coast as soon as we could.

Meet the team, and find out what happened next, when you view their story next week on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV Series on PBS.

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

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Derelict crab traps collected from Chocolate Bayou.

2016 Crab Trap Clean-up Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Lost and abandoned crab traps become hazards to marine life in Texas bays.

We are particularly concerned because of the ghost fishing effects; they continue fishing unmaintained.

When something gets in the trap and dies, it acts as bait, attracting more marine life, which in turn suffers the same fate. Art Morris coordinated the annual cleanup of derelict traps during his time with Texas Parks and Wildlife.

And what we do once a year in February, is get volunteers together up and down the coast, and we try to remove all those traps that have been lost, or vandalized or whatever that are potentially ghost fishing.

Volunteers have removed more than 31-thousand traps in the cleanup’s 15 year history. The cleanup traditionally starts on the third Friday of February and continues for 10 days.

We don’t have any kind of salvage laws in Texas, and once you put out a trap—it’s your property and nobody is supposed to touch that. So, in order to get to these derelict traps, we have a legislative, mandated closure.

This mandate gives citizens permission to remove derelict traps from their favorite fishing holes during that 10-day period. Find details volunteering for this year’s cleanup on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Flounder. Photo credit: Kendal Larson

Southern Flounder Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Brian Treadway fishes for flounder in Chocolate Bayou in West Galveston Bay.

Chocolate Bayou is an excellent spot for flounder. We have one of the shallowest bays in all the coast. And really and truly, we have the absolute best place to fish in the world right in our own backyard.

Southern flounder accounts for more than 95 percent of the flounder harvest in Texas. Sampling surveys indicate while populations of redfish and spotted sea trout are strong, southern flounder’s in decline.

We’ve had a slow, but steady, decrease in flounder populations throughout the coast of Texas. It’s been worse in some bays than it has in others. But, it’s just been a slow decline.

David Abrego with the Sea Center Texas Fish Hatchery, says data suggests issues affecting southern flounder decline include a lower number of females, overfishing and loss due to shrimp bycatch. Coastal fish hatcheries use brood stock to produce thousands of small flounder that will eventually go back into the bays.

If we’re able to stock fish into areas that are needed. Then, that is just another additional tool that can help the population recover.

Find bag limits and other regulations for fishing for flounder and other species on the Texas parks and Wildlife website.

The Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series through your purchases of fishing equipment, and motorboat fuels.

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