Passport to Texas

Black-tailed Prairie Dogs Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

08—(AMB: prairie dogs calling”)

The lonesome, high-pitched staccato vocalization of the black-tailed prairie dog resonates throughout the Panhandle Plains.

09—Prairie dogs are a keystone species. A keystone species is a species that needs to be there for other species to survive.

Marsha May coordinates Texas Nature Tracker programs for Texas Parks and Wildlife. Once numbering in the millions, prairie dog colonies in Texas currently occupy less than 1-percent of their historic range. And their decline does not bode well for the other species that depend on them.

19—Prairie dog’s colonies are used by up to 170 other animals. They are directly or indirectly dependent upon the colony. And they aerate the soil; they actually keep the prairie a prairie. They will chew down any shrubs that are within the colony. So, they’re very important for that ecosystem.

Texas Black-tailed Prairie Dog Watch is a program designed to involve citizens to collect data about prairie dog colonies. Researchers use the information to understand the species’ dramatic decline. To help you help them, there’s a monitoring packet available.

08—We created this because we need to find out what’s going on with prairie dog colonies throughout the state of Texas; mainly the Panhandle and West Texas where they’re found.

And we’ll tell you how you can get involved tomorrow.

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

Endangered Texas Snowbell Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

When the wind blows, its leaves shimmer, and in the spring, its beautiful white flowers bloom.

It was this beauty that inspired J. David Bamberger to save the endangered Texas Snowbell.

Bamberger owns 55 hundred acres in Blanco County and is an avid conservationist. But one of his greatest success stories is the Texas snowbell.

In 1987, state officials estimated there were a mere 87 snowbells in Texas. Since then, Bamberger’s team has planted and maintained nearly 700 more.

12—I spent five years going door to door, well ranch to ranch out in Edwards County, Real County, Val Verde County. And it took me five years to gain access to a ranch to look for the plant.

Once he did, Bamberger began collecting the seeds from the plants he found, replanting them on the ranches. But even with all his success, Bamberger says the Texas snowbell will likely always be endangered.

17—Now the scientists are saying that they won’t be delisted until we have 10,000 plants. That’s never going to happen, never ever going to happen. I think they need to reassess that number because before we came along the reintroductions were basically zero.

J. David Bamberger continues to monitor Texas snowbells and conduct research at his ranch, keeping the Texas snowbell alive and a part of .

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

Houston Toads: From the Ashes Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

With its habitat ravaged by wildfires, the future seems bleak for the endangered Houston toad. But this lost pines local has a friend in Professor Mike Forstner from Texas State.

10—My students, myself, and a large group of collaborators do significant ecological restoration, habitat recovery, particularly focused with landowners in Bastrop.

Before the fire, toad populations were stable due to landowners conserving their habitat. Now, it could take 40 years before the land recovers. What’s a toad to do?

19—in 2006 and 2007, we began a head starting program that included a captive assurance colony held at the Houston Zoo, with additional individuals at Fort Worth. And, we have better than 60% of the genetic diversity that we have detected in the wild—in a decade—represented in the captive colony.

Bastrop State Park, which took a big hit from the wildfires, is a significant study site for the Houston Toad, and the State Parks division at Texas Parks and Wildlife funds part of the study.

Scattered pockets of Houston Toad habitat exist, and may receive captive bred animals, but work is needed to improve the genetic diversity of the species in these locales.

26—Outside of Bastrop, the majority of the population fragments that remain, are effectively like having a single family, not a population of wildlife. And we haven’t developed a strategy that’s been approved yet that will enable bolstering that genetic diversity and those populations. The core is getting the support of the landowners in those areas to become as engaged as the landowners in Bastrop currently are.

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

Houston Toads: Surviving Wildfires Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Hundreds of homes were destroyed, and thousands of acres of habitat were significantly altered last month when catastrophic wildfires raged through Bastrop County, including Bastrop State Park—a stronghold of the endangered Houston Toad. Biologists are just beginning to quantify impacts on habitat from the blaze.

13—The fire will have taken most of the arthropods on the surface. In some areas it will have been ground sterilizing, removing the duff and the other community layers that the foodstuffs for juvenile toads and adults rely on.

Professor Mike Forstner, from Texas State University, studies the toads, and focuses on ecological restoration, habitat recovery, surveys, and genetics research.

The toad’s habitat is significantly changed. How much so? Researchers may not know the full impact for months. Meantime, Forstner says a break in the drought could benefit the toad and its home, and yet with rain a new problem may arise.

10—Those same beneficial rains will result in runoff of the mud, ash and silt into the breeding ponds that will negatively impact breeding success next spring.

The toads are down, but don’t count them out just yet. There’s a plan, and we tell you about it tomorrow.

Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Fire and the Houston Toad Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Wildfires that ignited Labor Day Weekend consumed more than thirteen hundred homes and tens of thousands of drought-stricken acres in Bastrop County, east of Austin, including much of Bastrop State Park: prime habitat of the endangered Houston Toad.

14—Even though the fire was incredibly intense on the surface, and would have affected all of the leaf littler that would have been on the forest floor, Houston Toads—even a few inches below the surface of the ground—would probably have been okay.

Mike Forstner, a professor at Texas State University whose work focuses on the toad, expects minimal mortality of adult animals as a direct result of the event.

Yet, months of severe drought in tandem with the fire add up to future challenges for this unique amphibian.

28—Depending on how the fire action was at a given location, the issues we will face is a loss of canopy cover, which for the toad is a bad deal. But we’ll also face drought impacts on the trees that remain. When we do get beneficial rains, the trees that have been killed will fall as their roots are loosened and hit trees that were not killed—exacerbating the affects yet again.

Food availability and poor water quality are future challenges for the toad, and we’ll talk about those issues tomorrow.

Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series.

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