Passport to Texas

Eastern wild turkey release at Gus Engeling WMA 02-05-2014

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This is Passport to Texas

A group of 31 eastern wild turkeys recently released in the Angelina National Forest may not be from Texas, but they got here as fast as they could. Wildlife biologist, Jason Hardin.

Any of these birds that come into Texas from out of state, we draw blood for disease testing. We’ve been really lucky—we’ve had really healthy birds coming in. In addition to that, the University of Georgia is doing DNA on all these birds.

Each bird got banded with its own ID number, and joined a four-decades-long restocking effort.

Turkeys were historically found throughout close to 30-million acres in east Texas. So, this is part of their historic range. Around the turn of the 20th Century, we lost birds due to over harvest—primarily—European settlers coming into Texas. 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 the last batch of 31, Texas Parks and Wildlife has introduced about 80 birds to the site. Now they’ll monitor their habitat use to determine their preferences, and to ensure their future.

From what we can tell, the birds appear to be doing pretty well. We have some of our highest populations of turkeys in east Texas on that site. So, we know that it can be very successful.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS airs a segment called Gobblers Go East the week of November 20, where you can see the rest of the story. Check your local listings.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

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.

Don Cash at the JD Murphee WMA

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This is Passport

This month, when you tune into the new season of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Television series on PBS, you’ll see some changes.

It’s going to have a little different look: new open, new music, new graphics—and as always—lots of new segments.

Series Producer, Don Cash, says new, shorter segments within episodes will offer viewers more variety.

We’re going to do a few less of the longer segments, and concentrate a little more on doing segments that are a little bit shorter—maybe three, four, five minutes. There’s just a lot of stuff that we want to put on the show. So, we’re going to concentrate a little bit more on doing some shorter things, and hopefully have more new segments than we’ve had in season’s past.

Viewers can still expect to see everything they love about the Texas outdoors on the show—and more. Improved, smaller cameras and micro-copters, help producers to tell stories on a more intimate scale.

These cameras allow you to get closer to things. Especially the Go-Pro cameras. You put a small camera on a kayak that you couldn’t do before. So, it does show a unique angle. And it allows us to really tell a story in a little different way.

The new season of the award-winning Texas Parks and Wildlife television series on PBS premiers the week of October 16. Check your local listings.

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

Pecos pupfish

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This is Passport to Texas

In the unforgiving terrain of Far West Texas lies the Trans Pecos. Much of the aquatic life that’s adapted to survive in the waters of this harsh Chihuahuan Desert Region are found only here.

Because of lack of water and loss of habitat we have a lot of fish in West Texas that are threatened.

Such as the Pecos pupfish. Fisheries biologist, Ken Saunders works in West Texas monitoring the species.

So we have about three miles left of creek left in the whole state of Texas that has the Pecos pupfish in it. So we are going to be taking DNA samples and shortly we’ll be able to know whether we still have that fish here or not.

We join Saunders as he evaluates Pecos Pupfish during an upcoming segment of the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV Series on PBS.

The science we are doing is really important because it gives us an idea of how the population of fish are doing. Are they declining? We wouldn’t know that if we didn’t come out here quarterly, throughout the year to monitor the population.

The Pecos pupfish is just one fish…in one area…of one desert. Why does it deserve our attention?

It’s part of the natural system, and every time we lose part of our natural system we lose part of us. It’s our world, if we don’t take care of it what are we going to have left….

View the segment on the Pecos Pupfish on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS the week of September 25. The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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

Caving at Colorado Bend State Park.

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Modern day cave explorers duck, climb, crawl, and squeeze their way through the dark and mysterious world that exists beneath the surface. Take a cave tour with Jason Hairston at Colorado Bend State Park the week of September 11, on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS.

Usually when you’re in your campsite, on a trail, you don’t typically think about what is 20, 30, 40 feet beneath you…But what is beneath you is another world. And it’s a world that is ready to explore. And so on cave tours here we give people an opportunity for people to get just a little taste of what it’s like to be a cave explorer. So we do get a lot of questions and concerns from potential cave tour participants about how challenging is it? Is it too tight? Is it going to be too dark? Is it too scary? When you start a cave tour, it’s not something you normally do. There’s going to be some discomfort. Maybe a little anxiousness. That’s normal. And that’s part of this whole process. It’s working through that. It’s a challenge, right?

The segment called Cave People airs the week on September 11 on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV Show on PBS. Check your local listings.

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