Passport to Texas

Creating fish habitat in aging reservoirs.

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This is Passport to Texas

Most freshwater fishing in Texas happens in reservoirs.

So we want to make sure we conserve the reservoirs and these fishing opportunities by restoring habitat.

Marcos de Jesus is with For Texas Parks and Wildlife Inland Fisheries. On next  week’s For Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS, the agency and its partners renew underwater habitat in reservoirs for better angling.

We can always supplement the woody debris, the vegetation, or any type of cover that fish need by cutting something like cedar trees. We can also use artificial habitat that different commercial producers make. These things are put together to mimic trees, that creates cover.

Although TPW has the expertise…

These projects can become expensive and they are labor intensive so we need partnerships to actually get these great projects on the water.

Partnerships with groups like Friends of Reservoirs.

Friends of Reservoirs is a great group. And these groups are usually composed of stakeholders that have the common interest of conservation and fishing. So they team up with Texas Parks and Wildlife; we do some great projects around the state.

See reservoir renovation in action next week on the For Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS. Check your local listings.

If you want to get involved and help TPWD with conservation initiatives, feel free to call local district biologist. And get involved and help us in conservation. We can’t do it alone.

The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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

El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail (U.S. National Park Service)

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This is Passport to Texas

El Camino Real de Los Tejas, is a historic trail from Spanish Colonial times that shaped Texas history. Learn more on a segment of the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS.

I’m Steven Gonzales. I’m executive director of El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail Association. El Camino Real de los Tejas is the old royal road that came up from Mexico City to establish Texas in Spanish colonial times. It’s the road that led to the founding of Texas. There are many caminos reales that make up the Camino Real. In times past these roads have different names because of the places that they were going to. The Old San Antonio Road and the Nacogdoches Road, La Bahia Road and the Laredo Road. Every Texan of note that we can think of, all the way from Spaniards such as Alonzo de Leon to Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Sam Houston, they all travelled along portions of the Camino Real at one time or another, and it’s really elemental to the state’s history. We think about things like the battle of the Alamo and Goliad, and we forget that those troops were actually travelling along roadways, pathways, and those were largely the Camino Real and segments of it.  So one of our goals is to make the public more aware of it.

El Camino Real de los Tejas: Tracing a Timeless Trail next week on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS. Check your local listings.

That’s our show for today… Funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram

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

Jacob Krebs. Image: Fredericksburg Standard–Gillespie Life

This is Passport to Texas

A tragic accident in 2013 took the life 18 year old Harper High School Senior, Jacob Krebs. Texas Parks and Wildlife, biologist, Joyce Moore.

Will and Mary Krebs raised him to be active in all facets of the community. He was an Eagle Scout. He was a re-enactor at the Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg. Then he was a phenomenal athlete. He would run eight miles without any problem. He was training constantly. When Jacob died, Will Krebs came to me and he said, Joyce, I would like to memorialize my son. Could you help me? And so I said we should ask the Harper Wildlife Association if they would help us do this.

And they did, by creating a Youth Hunt for Wounded Warriors in Memory of Jacob Krebs. All participants had a connection with the military. Jacob’s mother, Mary.

Jacob loved hunting and he also loved wounded warriors. He was so proud to acknowledge any veteran that he saw. He’d walk up to him and tell him thank you. And in memory of Jacob as well as the kids of veterans, we decided to honor them and have a youth hunt.

Mary Krebs says, Jacob’s impact didn’t end there. He was also an organ donor.

Jacob saved the lives of four people on April the 2, 2013 and he has greatly enhanced the lives of at least 80 more around the United States through tissue, bone and cornea donations.

Learn about Jacob Kreb’s lasting legacy next week on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS.

Check your local listings.

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

The shrimping life.

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This is Passport to Texas

When it comes to seafood, shrimp is king. And the Stringo Family—from Port O’Connor—are king-makers, having shrimped Texas Bays for decades.

I was born here. That’s all I’ve ever done—you know. Matagorda Bay, mainly.

That’s Anthony Stringo. He and his 75 year old father, Jesse, appear next week on a segment of the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS. Anthony says his dad’s been shrimping the bays most of his life.

Fifty years I’d say. Yeah. Probably one of the oldest left out here. There might be one or two more his age left.

Texas Parks and WildlifeFisheries Biologist, Mark Fisher, also on the show, says shrimping’s changed since the Stringo family started working the bays.

Shrimping in the nineteen fifties was a very good decade. A price of shrimp was very high, fuel, fuel was cheap, labor was abundant; there was almost no government regulation back then. If you could work hard and handle it, it was all for the taking.

Anthony says shrimping’s not as freewheeling or as lucrative today.

These are the big shrimp, we ought to be getting four dollars a pound for them shrimp right there. But the markets not there because [consumers] get so much from overseas, [including] the farm raised shrimp.

Last of the Stringos airs on next week’s Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS. Check your local listings.

The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

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

Hueco Tanks pictograph

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This is Passport to Texas

If you’ve been to Hueco Tanks State Park and Historic Site in El Paso, count yourself among the lucky.

Hueco Tanks isn’t the smallest state park, but it’s definitely the most exclusive. It’s capped at 72 people a day.

Next week the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS explores the park with an enthusiastic El Paso native.

I’m Clara Cobb, and I run a couple social media sites here in El Paso. What you really do [in social media] is tell stories. And that’s my attraction—absolutely—to Hueco Tanks. It’s a place where people have been telling stories for 10,000 years.

The stories are still being told with the rock art left behind by early inhabitants who were drawn to the site because of the rainwater pooled in natural rock basins, or huecos. You can learn more on a pictograph tour…

 [Clara] Which takes you behind the scenes to some of the more exclusive places.

[Interpreter] Welcome to site 17. This is lower 17—also known as newspaper cave. You have above us these cream colored shapes that date back to Apache era, roughly, somewhere around two to 400 years old. A bit more recently than them, this orange-ish horse shape right here. Everyone always thinks that is native American cave art. It’s not.

Acquaint yourself with Hueco Tanks State Park and Historic Site on next week’s Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS. Check your local listings.

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