Passport to Texas

Herd of feral hogs.

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Trapping and hunting are not effective controls against feral pigs.

These methods have not been able to reduce the geographic spread and the increase and abundance of feral pigs in our state, nationwide, and – I’m sorry to say – globally.

Justin Foster, research coordinator at TPWD for region two, says we need new tools to combat the pigs. The agency is evaluating sodium nitrite based pig toxicants.

What we don’t have is a tremendous amount of information that tells us that we can deliver any pesticide safely, reliably and humanely.

They’re collecting that data now. During one field test the pigs dropped baits, perhaps detecting a difference between the placebo and poison versions. This lead to unintended costs for passerine birds.

And so, as this bait was being dropped, and those feral pigs were going back to the feeder to try some more—it wasn’t so bad that they weren’t trying more—they were trampling the bait that had been dropped. And that bait had some grain in it. We assume those passerine birds were targeting that grain.

Researchers do not take such losses lightly, and continue to work on a reliable and humane protocol.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series and funds the development of toxicants and delivery strategies for controlling feral hogs in Texas.

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

Feral Hogs at the Kerr Wildlife Management Area

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Feral hogs account for more than $52 million dollars in damage to Texas agriculture annually. The cost to habitat and wildlife is incalculable. While Texas has more feral swine than any other state, we don’t know their numbers.

Estimates at the statewide scale are pretty loose. And I’d kind of like to leave it at that.

Justin Foster is research coordinator at TPWD for region two. He said some estimates suggest upwards of 3.5-million feral pigs roam Texas.

Their impacts are certainly well documented and widespread. And, I think all of them [impacts] are not identified yet.

They may, in fact, be doing more harm than we know. These animals are adaptable, robust, and are reproductive stars. Populations vary due to wide-ranging resource conditions. Hunting is not effective when it comes to reducing their numbers. So, Texas Parks and Wildlife is studying the use of a toxicant to control them.

We’re talking about, literally, a pesticide. It is an active ingredient that is targeted to produce a lethal outcome for the purposes of control. In this case, that active ingredient that our work centers around is sodium nitrite.

Tomorrow: the trial and error process of finding an effective control.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series and funds the development of toxicants and delivery strategies for controlling feral hogs in Texas.

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

Fox Finders of TPW TV Series on PBS

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The swift fox is one of the smallest species of the wild dog family in North America.

We’re working with Texas Parks and Wildlife to survey for swift foxes in a nine county area in the Texas Panhandle that falls within the historic distribution for this species.

Doni Schwalm is a research associate at the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University. The Texas Parks and Wildlife TV Series follows Schwalm and her team for a segment on swift fox airing this week on PBS.

This species, from what we can tell from historic records was almost gone. We know for sure there has been a big decline historically. About 50 percent of their historic distribution now no longer has swift foxes, and where they do still exist, the population is kind of patchy and so it’s not very continuous. We think that the first and foremost thing that led to these major population declines were historic predator control programs where they were poisoning, kind of indiscriminately for wolves mostly and really just anything, and unfortunately those baits, they’re not specific. And we ended up with a lot fewer foxes that way. Of course they like grassland habitat. The more agricultural development there is, especially just like irrigated farmland, the fewer swift foxes there will be. And finally, primarily because there are no more wolves, there are way more coyotes than there used to be, and coyotes are their highest source of mortality, up to 77 percent of their mortality, so it’s a pretty big deal.

The segment Fox Finders is airing now on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS. Check your local listings.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

Pronghorn capture and release.

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Wildlife biologist, Shawn Gray, stays busy most days in his role as Texas Parks and Wildlife pronghorn and mule deer program leader in the Trans Pecos.

I get to oversee the management and research for the two species for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

This includes orchestrating the restoration of these species to their native range. Last year, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department successfully relocated 109 pronghorn.

Our surplus populations are located in the Northwest and Northeast Panhandle. We take animals from healthy populations there to boost our local populations in the Trans Pecos that have in recent years seen historic decline.

Texas Parks and Wildlife worked with partners to redistribute the animals.

Translocation has been one of the management tools we’ve been able to do to help those populations rebound. There’s a whole suite of things that we do to improve populations. And, of course, we always need help from Mother Nature to make all those things work for us.

Drought was a leading factor in the pronghorn’s decline in the Trans Pecos, but Gray says the reasons are more complex than that alone. After trapping the animals, each received a health checkup; some were fitted with radio collars.

Through time and our management practices, the populations have been responding well.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series and funds pronghorn restoration in Texas.

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

Bobwhite Brigade Cadets. Image: Texasbrigades.org

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To categorize the Texas Brigades as “summer camp” is like calling a mountain lion “a kitty cat”.

This is not a normal summer camp. This is meant to be a lot more than that.

Writer, Aubry Buzek wrote a story about the Brigades for the October  issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

The editor of the magazine said, I want you to go to this summer camp and write about it. And I was thinking: Okay. There’s going to be fun stuff happening; I get there and it’s in the middle of a session on how conservation groups work in Texas….and conservation and hunters ethics. And I was like, Whoa!

The 5-day, cell-phone free, camps for youth build confidence and camaraderie with projects, public speaking and debates on conservation issues.

There are some really amazing instructors who come to this camp. There are instructors there who are wildlife biologists from Texas Parks and Wildlife, other private hunting ranches, water control authorities…just the gambit of [conservation] organizations in Texas. The kids get to meet people not easily accessible. Every instructor that I talked to said that they want these kids to pick up the phone and keep in touch with them. They want to help them grow now and into the future.

Aubry Buzek’s story on the Texas Brigades appears in the October issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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