Passport to Texas

Join us for a blast from the past.

Veteran's Day Events in State Parks Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Veteran’s Day is Friday November 11.

The Sunday after veteran’s Day it is free admission into Texas State parks for everybody in the state.

Aaron Friar, with Texas State Parks, says nobody pays park day use fees on Sunday, November 13.

That’s a really cool way that we’re trying to honor our veterans and our active military. The only caveat is that it doesn’t apply to camping fees or activity fees. But all day use fees are waived.

Battleship Texas, offers two events Saturday November 12 to honor Veterans. During the day, join the crew aboard ship for a day of patriotic fun! In the evening, experience a 1945 themed victory dance with live music on the main deck of the ship, games, food and drink. Period or military dress is welcomed, but not required.

This is for the 18 and up. But, it’s a great tour where you actually get onto the ship and you get to really learn about what it was like for day-to-day life for a sailor on the ship. And they’ll take you through it all; they’ll teach you all the card games and all the different activities that kept them busy while they were on the ship. So, it’s a pretty neat event.

Find a link to ticket information at passporttotexas.org.

Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

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

___________________________________________

Find tickets for 1945 Victory Dance on Battleship Texas.

Using fishing nets to harvest from the gulf.

Ask a Game Warden - Seafood Regulations Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas Ask a Game Warden

Is it okay to sell, barter or trade your fresh gulf catch? To find out, we asked Game Warden Brandi Reeder.

Whenever you have a recreational license, those products [you harvest] are for recreational purposes [only]. At the point that you conduct a sale, barter, or exchange for some sort of gain, that is now a commercial purpose. Therefore, you must be commercially licensed.

Reeder is Assistant Commander Fisheries Law Administrator. She says anglers may purchase licenses that cover commercial harvest and sale.

There are fishermen licenses, and there are dealer licenses. And so the two are a little bit different. One authorizes—obviously—the harvest. The other would authorize the purchase for sale, and the subsequent resale.

If your license is for recreational fishing only, and your cooler runneth over after a coastal fishing trip, invite folks to the house for a meal of gulf fish, or give away some of your catch. But Game Warden Reeder says that’s all you can do legally with a recreational license.

If they are such a successful fisherman—which I have known a few—and they would like to pursue a commercial market, and possibly sell, themselves, they need to do their due diligence. And, they’re always welcome to call Parks and Wildlife law enforcement offices in order to gain more insight and information.

We have a link on passporttotexas.org where you can find additional information.

The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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

___________________________________

Additional Information:

Texas Commercial Fishing Guide [PDF]

Shrimp Regulations and Restrictions

Oyster Regulations

TPW TV - Paragliding Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Franklin Mountains State Park is the only Park in Texas and one of the few parks in the United States that encourages paragliding.

So, the Franklins are a great source of what we call lift from the air coming in. And, they’re also a great source of thermals; two ways we get up. All here in the Franklins.

A paraglider is a lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure.

It’s a soaring aircraft, which means we generally don’t have a motor; and we find air that’s going up. And we go up…and up…and up.

During the week of October 31, the TPW TV Show on PBS features a segment on Paragliding at the Franklin Mountains.

It’s a pretty obscure air sport. I think there’s are maybe 4,000, 5,000 pilots in the US. There are sites all over the country. And this one looks pretty awesome.

Paragliding may look intimidating, and while paragliders exercise caution, it’s usually a fairly gentle ride.

Most people think we jump off of a cliff and its life or death. You just step off and you float. You feel the wing flying. It’s really just floating off. It’s relaxing fun. It’s a lawn chair in the sky, and you enjoy life.

See the segment on paragliding the week of October 31 on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS. Check your local listings.

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

Randall Kroll, a TPWD wildlife biologist, releasing wild eastern turkey. Image: Houston Chronicle

Turkeys on the Move Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport

East Texas once had abundant wild turkey populations. Then, around the turn of the 20th century over harvesting by European settlers nearly wiped them out.

There were no regulations to stop them from harvesting those animals and no law enforcement out there to enforce the few regulations that we did have.

With new regulations in place, turkey restoration got underway. Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist, Jason Hardin, says decades of restocking Eastern Wild Turkey has been successful for some East Texas counties.

The early efforts began with wild trapped Eastern turkeys in 1979. Dr. Roel Lopez coined the phrase ‘super stocking’. He said if we put large numbers of birds on the ground—up to 70 to 80 birds—that even under the worst case scenario, you’d have a really good opportunity for success as long as you’re focusing on quality habitat.

Thirty-one turkeys from Iowa, recently released in the Angelina National Forest, brought the total number to 80 birds. Outfitted with GPS transmitters, researchers plan to track them to determine their preferred habitat.

Essentially, we’re just going to be looking at the movement behavior. We’ll start doing vegetation sampling at each nest site. And then, that will go into this first years’ worth of data, and then we’ll come back and do it again next year.

Since 1979, more than 7,500 Eastern Turkeys have been released into 56 counties in East Texas on wildlife management areas, private lands and national forests.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

Nathan Adams and his kiddos searching for Pokémon.

Pokémon Guide to State Parks Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport

Since adding a Pokémon Guide to the Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine APP, the publication’s art director, Nathan Adams and his sons, have spent a lot of time in Texas State Parks.

So, every day when I come home, my boys who are six and 10, they want to see what’s been added to the APP–what new parks have been added. And as they flip through the APP on my iPad or my iPhone, [they give me] a laundry list of ‘here’s where we have to go this weekend.’

Through augmented reality, the Pokémon GO APP by Niantic, Inc., populates the outdoors with creatures suited to their locales. Texas Parks and Wildlife’s guide helps to find them in Texas State Parks.

They’re tied to geographic locations. So, if there’s a lot of water in a park, for example, then more water type Pokémon would be there. If there’s a lot of rocks in the park, then you’d have more rock-type Pokémon. So, what you’d find at Hueco Tanks is going to be very different than what you’d find at McKinney Falls.

Parks can harbor some rare Pokémon, but that’s not all.

More than that, going to the park lets you encounter non-virtual creatures who are stunning and beautiful in their own right, and are not pixilated. My children refer to it as Pokémon IRL—or Pokémon in real life. Where suddenly it’s like: ‘Hey, Dad—what is that?’ And it’s caused them to look at other things. It’s caused them to be outside more.

Download the Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine Pokémon APP for free from the Texas Parks and Wildlife website…and get outside.

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