Passport to Texas

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

Biologists at the Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center in Kerrville for the past thirteen years have worked to reestablish the Guadalupe Bass, which had experienced a significant population decline.

It has two different problems it’s facing throughout its range. One is just habitat loss – which a lot of animals face. Here, and in most of the places it occurs, that’s not nearly as much of a problem as hybridization with the smallmouth bass.

Dr. Gary Garrett is a fisheries biologist at Heart of the Hills. The Guadalupe bass occurs only in the Texas Hill Country, in the headwaters of the streams that drain the Edwards Plateau. Smallmouth bass, introduced to these waters in the mid-1970s to provide additional sport fish for anglers, hybridized with the native species.

So, they’re not as well adapted for their environment. They may do well in the short run, but in the long haul they’re really not going to be as good a species.

Efforts to restore the Guadalupe bass population began with a study of Johnson Creek.

Here in Johnson Creek where we began the study, we started with about thirty percent of the fish were hybrids –and that wasn’t stable – it was still increasing when we started.

The prognosis for the state fish of Texas is excellent. And we’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

That’s our show for today…supported by the Sport Fish Restoration program, which funds research at the Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center…

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

The Texas Archaeological Society — dedicated to the study and preservation of the historic and prehistoric aspects of our past — offers its annual Field School next month in West Texas, just as its done since the 1960s.

It was a way to get people out and get hands-on experience doing archeology. Because you can read about archeology, but until you get out and get in the dirt and dig and find the artifacts in the proper context, that’s when you start understanding what archeology is all about.

Doug Boyd, is Co-Director of the school’s Youth Group.

Families can come to field school and their kids can participate with us while they participate with the adult group. And we’ll have anywhere from 35 to 45 kids in our youth group. We’re doing the same thing adults are. We’re learning hands-on excavation and survey techniques, and we also have a number of other activities set up for the kids.

Kids connect with history in a very personal way.

One of the things that we try and do with the kids is we make them aware of the importance of some of the things that they’re finding. When they learn how to do a certain archaeological technique right and they get complimented on that, and their faces light up, and you know that you’re connecting with them, that’s what it’s all about. That’s what makes it worth wild.

The Texas Archaeological Society Field Camp is June 9th through 16th in Menard, Texas. Online registration is available at www.txarch.org. Register by May 31st.

That’s our show for today…with research and writing help from Loren Seeger…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Humanities Texas is the state affiliate for of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Executive Director Michael L. Gillette.

We’re a 501(c)(3) non-profit, but every year we receive a grant from the NEH – The National Endowment for the Humanities – and we use that grant to promote the humanities in public programs throughout the state.

The organization recently awarded TPWD a $10-thousand dollar grant to support development of an online education center exploring the history of Texas in the 1930s and 1940s. Gillette says the lack of high quality, primary source material related to Texas in the 20th Century was one reason the project received funding.

So, I think that was very appealing, and the fact that it was truly a statewide project and relates to so many sites throughout the state.

The grant for this project was made possible by the Linden Heck Howell Memorial Fund.

Titled “A New Deal for Texas,” the web pages will feature lesson plans and historical essays that will help students investigate digitized historical images, artifacts and documents relating to New Deal programs in Texas.

One thing that it will achieve is enabling student to recognize the history around them.

Web pages for “A New Deal for Texas” are currently in development.

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

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

A 10-thousand dollar grant from the Linden Heck Howell Trust… awarded by Humanities Texas… will make it possible for Parks and Wildlife to develop a project called A New Deal for Texas that highlights the contributions of the Civilian Conservation Corps – or CCC – in our state.

Actually, this is a new kind of project for my division, because it is a curriculum, and it is aimed at seventh grade students and their teachers.

Angela Davis heads interpretive planning for Texas Parks and Wildlife. The project will exist in virtual reality and recount the era when unemployed young men working for the CCC, toiled on conservation and construction projects in State Parks.

Traditionally, my division has done exhibits that would be at a site…but we really wanted to reach out there and touch people who maybe didn’t know about some of the wonderful parks in their very own backyards.

The World Wide Web seemed a good fit.

There’s so much that we can do with the web format. We can stream video. We can stream audio. We’re going to be able to share oral histories; we’re going to be able to share period photographs of depression era workers building the parks. We’re going to be able to share Depression era architectural drawings. So, there are things that we can layer on a website that I could never present in a park – so it’s a great media for interpretation.

The web project A New Deal for Texas will be online later this year. Until then, find information about the CCC on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

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

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Even though you’ve heard us talk many times about park interpretation, you may still wonder what it really means.

That’s such a good question, and it’s one of the hardest ones to answer.

Angela Davis is head of interpretive planning for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

The word interpretation means a lot of things to a lot of people. But what it means to us – in the most romantic way – is that the parks are one of our most precious recourses… all the things that are in the parks: beautiful scenery, the mountains, the rivers, and of course, our historic structures. But what interpretation does is helps people relate personally to why those resources are significant. Why we – the people of Texas – have chosen to protect them.

Sometimes interpretation involves translating science and history into formats visitors can easily understand.

What we want to do is make the resources – and why they are significant – accessible. To make it fun…to make it enjoyable…to make it relevant…to every person who walks into one of our parks.

Or to everyone who logs onto the Internet…

It’s [the Internet] actually a perfect technology for interpretation.

Tomorrow: details about an online project under development that will breathe fresh life into the New Deal.

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

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