Passport to Texas

Big Bend National Park. On the border.

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This is Passport to Texas

Borders are political demarcations, conceived of by man. Nature, meanwhile, knows no such boundaries.

The boundary to Texas and the United States doesn’t stop midway in the Rio Grande. It goes all the way to the Mexican side as far as the resources are concerned.

Smiley Nava retired from Texas Parks and Wildlife where he served as its borderlands biologist. His work focused on the natural resources along the 12-hundred mile border shared between Texas and Mexico.

We are specifically looking at the state natural resources that we share with our four Mexican states. We’re right at around fifty percent of the US/Mexico border, so Texas is an important component of those shared resources.

The area Smiley oversaw is diverse.

The Tamaulipan scrub land is one of the provinces that are prominent for a good part of our border that we share with Mexico. The other part, the upper basin of the Rio Grande, as you move inland, is more typical of the Chihuahuan desert. So the species utilize those, what natural resources and components we share with Mexico in those regions, kind of drive where we’re trying to focus our work.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Deer suffering from Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).

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This is Passport to Texas

During its March meeting, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commissioners expanded the state’s chronic wasting disease (CWD) Panhandle Containment Zone. This action followed the discovery of CWD earlier this year in a roadkill white-tailed deer.

Texas Parks and Wildlife’s wildlife veterinarian, Dr. Bob Dittmar says: “The state’s wildlife disease management response… focuses on an early detection and containment strategy… designed to limit the spread of CWD from the affected area… and better understand the distribution and prevalence of the disease.”

The test positive roadkill was among more than 10-thousand deer, elk and other susceptible exotic game animal samples…collected from a variety of sources by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department personnel… for CWD testing during the 2017-18 collection year.

Of the samples, more than 2-thousand came from roadkill. The rest were obtained through mandatory and voluntary hunter harvest submissions.

Since 2012 when the state first discovered the disease among mule deer, Texas has recorded 100 confirmed cases of CWD.

Details about each CWD detection in Texas are available on Texas Parks and Wildlife web site.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

On which side of the fence do you imagine you will find more wildlife?

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This is Passport to Texas

Habitat requirements vary between species, yet some critters make themselves at home anywhere.

Wildlife are really adaptable, and there’s going to be some wildlife that thrive in whatever type of habitat that’s provided.

Kelly Simon (SEE-mah) is an urban wildlife biologist. Even a perfectly manicured monochromatic monoculture known as lawn—will attract some wildlife.

In a typical urban area—where you’ve got really closely mowed Bermuda grass lawn, or St. Augustine lawn, and then just a few really tall mature trees and kind of nothing in the middle? That kind of habitat is really good for grackles, and pigeons, for possum and raccoon, and kind of the species that you see in a disturbed habitat.

Simon says most people don’t mind seeing those species sometimes, but not all the time.

And so what we try to do is to encourage people to create a more balanced habitat. And what I mean by that is to provide native plants that provide natural food sources—fruits, nuts, berries, leaves, etcetera—that provide a balanced source of nutrition for the animals.

This balanced habitat is called a wildscape. Find wildscape information on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife restoration program supports our series.

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

Fox Finders of TPW TV Series on PBS

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This is Passport to Texas

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.

Bobcats are attracted to delicious sounds.

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This is Passport to Texas

Kissing the palm of your hand sounds like what a kid might do to practice for their first lip lock. But it’s also useful for attracting wildlife…the four legged variety.

I can do that to a bobcat that’s sitting out there behind a bush at a hundred yards, and it’ll start him towards me almost immediately. It just sounds delicious.

Gerald Stewart is a consultant for Johnny Stewart wildlife calls. Gerald’s dad, Johnny, created the business, which featured recorded animal sounds.

Dad realized early on in the development of the business, that these sounds could be used by quite a wide variety of people. Photographers, nature lovers, bird watchers, hunters, researchers, or people that just want to simply show their grandkids the eyes of a raccoon coming through the grass at night…just for the joy of being able to see something wild, literally a few feet away from them.

Screech owls are common in residential neighborhoods, and are a good animal to call when you’re with children.

It’s easier to call screech owls with children around. Screech owls are a gregarious little bird, very social. And will put up with human presence. After a minute or two of being there, humans can just start talking and milling around and the little screech owl just sits in the tree.

Learn about native wildlife by logging onto the Texas Parks and Wildlife web site.

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