Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

The 2009 commemorative State Park Christmas ornament is as big as Texas—at least in spirit—and is available through the end of the month.

Each year it showcases something different that is particularly unique to what you can find when you go and visit our state parks.

Bryan Frazier is promotions coordinator for state parks. The newest ornament is gold-plated, diamond shaped, and has a fly rod gracefully arching over the top.

There’s a ring-tailed cat on the inside, there’s the windmill that’s at Brazos Bend State Park, there’s a magnolia flower, and a desert big horn sheep, and part of the mountain range of Big Bend Ranch in there.

And that’s only half of what’s included in this lovely, delicate decoration. If you’ve been collecting these ornaments, be advised you only have until the end of the month to get yours.

They’re $5.50 plus tax, and you can order them from our central reservation system. And a special promotion is going to happen starting December first and runs through December thirty-first, where if you buy a state park pass gift certificate you get the ornament for free.

There is also a nominal fee for shipping and handling.

We’ll tell you about the special promotion tomorrow.

Until then, go to passporttotexas.org for details on how to get your 2009 commemorative State Park Christmas ornament.

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

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Wildlife Restoration Program

Witness efforts to understand and protect the endangered Houston Toad this month on the Texas Parks and Wildlife television series. Producer, Abe Moore.

They used to be all the way from Houston to Bastrop, but now they’re just in little pockets. So, we went out with some biologists to try and find some Houston toads in some ponds.

[Frog calls] So, it’s the unicorn in the woods. I mean, this is the thing that no one can find, and yet, at the same time, this is an animal that makes three thousand eggs at a time.

What we found while we were doing the story was that the Houston Zoo is working with biologists by raising baby toads—little Houston toadlets.

Our role in the Houston Toad recovery plan is one of kind of last resort. We’re starting to form a captive assurance colony, basically, and that is a, uh, like a failsafe against the extinction of the Houston Toad in the wild.

While we were out there, I was amazed at how big these toads were. They were fat and happy.

Some are kind of larger than what you’d expect.[shakes container of crickets] We’ve probably got about three or four thousand crickets in this container right here. We go through in the moment about six thousand a week.

So that’s on Texas Parks and Wildlife television the first or second week of December.

Thanks, Abe. Better check your local listings.

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

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

You don’t have to be a birder to appreciate Resaca de la Palma State Park, north of Brownsville. Pablo De Yturbe is park superintendent.

We are part of the World Birding Center, so birds are important to us. But, not only that, when you get birds, you have butterflies, you have dragonflies, and five hundred and so different plant species, which some of them are very rare.

You also get a variety of mammals, reptiles and amphibians. The 12-hundred acre park is the largest tract of native habitat in the World Birding Center network.

It also offers viewing decks overlooking the resaca, thus affording visitors a bird’s eye view of wildlife that uses the wetland.

Experience it for yourself on Saturday, December 6, when Resaca de la Palma State Park celebrates its grand opening with Family Day.

Our aim is to have not only bird watchers and nature lovers, but the whole family come and spend the day at the park. We’re going to have different activities. We’re going to have vendors, food, interpretive tours, hawk shows, and the buffalo soldiers.

Entrance is free for the grand opening. Resaca de la Palma State Park is possible thanks to increased park funding provided last session by the Texas Legislature.

Find information about the park at passporttotexas.org. That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Wildlife Restoration Program

Dense Tamaulipan thorn scrub and other habitats make up Resaca de la Palma State Park, near Brownsville.

We have four different observation decks where they [visitors] can view the wildlife that uses the resaca. And each deck is a little bit different both in terms of the amount of sunlight that it gets during different times of the day, and also—to a degree—the vegetation that’s in that area where the resaca curves through it.

Katherine Miller is a natural resource specialist at the site. Once a dry riverbed, park staff flooded the resaca this summer, and control water levels to support a wide variety of wildlife, including more than 277 bird species.

It just amazes me how I can go outside in the park and walk around and find a new butterfly species that I’ve never seen here, or a bird species that’s just migrating in. Being able to get into all these different habitats and seeing the variety of birds, and knowing that we’re providing a place for them. I think that’s the most important thing—we’re doing something for the environment and protecting those species.

The 12-hundred acre park, part of the World Birding Center, is open for day use only. It has eight miles of trails in addition to the observation decks.

It’s mostly a park for people to get out and experience nature by walking or biking. We also will have a tram, and the tram will allow visitors into the park.

The Grand Opening celebration for Resaca de la Palma—details tomorrow.

That’s our show… with support form the Wildlife Restoration program… providing funding for wetland conservation through the Private Lands Enhancement Program.

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

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Wildlife Restoration Program

Some say you can smell a resaca long before you see it. The peculiar perfume of decaying vegetation often fills the airspace of these marshy wetlands that snake along the border, defining the floodplain of the Rio Grande.

When we filled the resaca with water, then we had a lot of plant life that started to rot away a little bit. So right then, there were some stronger smells. Most of those have dissipated into the atmosphere.

Katherine Miller is a natural resource specialist at Resaca de la Palma State Park—the newest park in the system—north of Brownsville.

What we have here is a resaca that curves through the park. And the way that was originally created was that when the Rio Grande would flood, it would get these oxbow lakes. And this resaca has been dry since the seventies. And Texas Parks and Wildlife acquired the land and we started putting water in it this summer.

The addition of water has attracted wildlife. The park encompasses 17-hundred acres of intact Tamaulipan thorn scrub.

And we also have other habitat. We have hackberry. We have anacua ebony type of woodlands. And we have some revegetated grassland as well. So we have a variety of different habitats the birds and the other wildlife can use.

Resaca de la Palma State Park, part of the World Birding Center, has its grand opening December 6. Tomorrow, we learn about the wildlife at the park.

That’s our show… with support from the Wildlife Restoration Program… providing funding for wetland conservation through the Private Lands Enhancement Program. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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