Passport to Texas

White Nose Syndrome, Photo: USFWS

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Discovered 10 years ago in upstate New York, white nose syndrome—a fungal disease that kills hibernating bats—traveled a predictable path.

For the previous 10 years it has spread incrementally. From New York State to the neighboring states; one step at a time in a very predictable way. And then, all of a sudden to have it show up in Washington State was out of sequence.

Jonah Evans is a mammologist with TPW. This year’s discovery in Washington State is the first recorded occurrence of WNS in western North America. Prior to that, researchers predicted the disease would eventually reach the western states by way of the Texas Panhandle.

In some ways I like to think of it as the enemy has flanked us. We had clear battle lines drawn. We knew which direction the enemy was advancing. And all of a sudden, it’s coming from behind us as well. It’s definitely not encouraging. It’s actually quite alarming in the bat and white nose research communities.

While researchers do not know for sure how the disease got to Washington, many suspect it may have been transported by people. So, prevention starts with cavers.

Especially people who are frequent cavers who might go from one spot to another and then travel to another state, and go into multiple caves. We’re really encouraging caving communities and other people going into caves to be really cautious and to use decontamination whenever they can.

Find a link to decontamination protocols at passporttotexas.org.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

Bats at Devil’s Sinkhole State Natural Area.

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Bat have been maligned for centuries.

Most people don’t know anything about them because they don’t have any interaction with them.

Fran Hutchins is with Bat Conservation International.

People know a lot about birds, and most people aren’t afraid of birds because they see ‘em all day long. Bats are flying around at night when most of us are home sleeping. And unless we see ‘em around a street light or dipping down into somebody’s swimming poll to get a drink of water—most people don’t have any contact with bats. So, what they know about them is what they’ve seen on TV. And most of the time on TV—especially if it’s Hollywood—they’re bloodsucking monsters that are flying in and dragging someone off into the tree line and sucking them dry.

There are no blood sucking bats in Texas. And of the 1300 bat species worldwide, Hutchins says only three feed on blood.

The rest of them are insect eating bats and pollinating bats, and fruit bats that are really important to us.

Hutchins adds bats are not blind, they won’t tangle up in your hair, and they do not carry rabies.

People think all bats have rabies—and they don’t. Rabies is a virus that’s out there in the environment that bats, as mammals, can get as we do. They’re not carriers. If a bat gets sick with rabies, it dies.

That’s why we never handle bats that are on the ground. They could be sick. Other than that—they are beneficial mammals that deserve our respect.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

Randall Kroll, a TPWD wildlife biologist, releasing wild eastern turkey. Image: Houston Chronicle

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East Texas once had abundant wild turkey populations. Then, around the turn of the 20th century over harvesting by European settlers nearly wiped them out.

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 new regulations in place, turkey restoration got underway. Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist, Jason Hardin, says decades of restocking Eastern Wild Turkey has been successful for some East Texas counties.

The early efforts began with wild trapped Eastern turkeys in 1979. Dr. Roel Lopez coined the phrase ‘super stocking’. He said if we put large numbers of birds on the ground—up to 70 to 80 birds—that even under the worst case scenario, you’d have a really good opportunity for success as long as you’re focusing on quality habitat.

Thirty-one turkeys from Iowa, recently released in the Angelina National Forest, brought the total number to 80 birds. Outfitted with GPS transmitters, researchers plan to track them to determine their preferred habitat.

Essentially, we’re just going to be looking at the movement behavior. We’ll start doing vegetation sampling at each nest site. And then, that will go into this first years’ worth of data, and then we’ll come back and do it again next year.

Since 1979, more than 7,500 Eastern Turkeys have been released into 56 counties in East Texas on wildlife management areas, private lands and national forests.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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

Far West Texas Wildlife Trail map

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Texas Parks and Wildlife non game ornithologist, Cliff Shackelford says you don’t have to travel to the Rio Grande Valley to see a wide variety of birds this winter.

We have the wildlife viewing trails all across Texas. These are hot spots that you can find easily that might be close to you or near where you’re going. And they’re available for people to go and look at birds [and other wildlife].

Find the wildlife viewing maps on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website. Cliff says Texans can plan a winter birding “staycation” with minimal planning.

You can attract a lot of winter birds to your backyard. You can do something as simple as putting out a bird feeder and a birdbath. Or better, creating a wildscape, which is gardening for backyard wildlife. And we do that in our yard and we get so many white-throated sparrows that stay the winter with us because we have provided them with the cover that they need. We have a lot of berry giving shrubs, so we get a lot of cedar waxwings, and American Robins wintering with us. So, you can attract a lot of things in your backyard and have a really good time.

Find birding information and the wildlife viewing trail maps on the Parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series, and funds diverse conservation projects in Texas.

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

Milkweed for monarchs

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More than seventy species of milkweed have been recorded nationwide; over half of those are native to Texas. Including two that are endemic.

These are species that are found nowhere else but within the Texas border. One of them is called Texas Milkweed, which is found in canyons in Central Texas. And then we have a species called Coastal Milkweed that occurs roughly from the Houston area to just north of Brownsville.

Jason Singhurst, a botanist with Texas Parks and Wildlife, says milkweeds provide sustenance to the iconic monarch butterfly during its migration.

So, here in Texas, we know certain species like green milkweed, antelope horns, broadleaf milkweed, and zizotes are some of our most abundant species that we’re seeing monarch larvae and adults visit.

Because milkweed species vary, do monarchs use each species in the same or different ways?

That’s a really good question. That’s something we’re trying to figure out in Texas. And that’s why we started this mapping project called Texas Milkweeds and Monarchs project—using iNaturalist. It’s an app that you can download on your smartphone. We’re using that project to help us identify different species of milkweeds across the state, and then also which species that larvae, or adult monarch butterflies are visiting.

Find a link to the Milkweeds and Monarchs project on iNaturalist at passporttotexas.org.

Find an article about milkweeds by Jason Singhurst in the August/September issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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