Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

The Texas Panhandle suffered devastating fires in March 2006. This month, a story by Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series producer Don Cash, highlights the habitat and wildlife before and after the blaze.

One of the places that burned during the panhandle fires was an area where I had shot a story three years earlier on lesser prairie chickens. So, I decided I would go and be able to compare before the fires, and went up a couple of weeks after the fires…

Trees, shrubs, uh, all the grass is gone. All cover. All habitat for all wildlife is at this point gone. For the most part the wildlife are on their own.

And then went back a year after the fires. And so its sort of a look at how the habitat makes a very strong comeback after fires like this.

These animals have living up here on the prairie for thousands and thousands of years. And this isn’t their first fire. They’ll come back, and they will all recover.

When I went up there three weeks after the fire, there were some areas that were just sand, which – a month before – had been hip deep in grasses. They had had a little bit of rain a week after the fires, and there was already plants starting to poke through four or five inches of sand that quickly. So, the land is very resilient. Nature does a good job of bringing itself back.

Thanks, Don. Visit passporttotexas.org for a complete listing of stations airing the series.

That’s our show for today…for Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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Texas Parks and Wildlife on PBS and Cable
Stations and Air Times
Times and dates are subject to change, especially during PBS membership drives.

• Amarillo, KACV-TV, Channel 2: October–March, Saturday 6 p.m.
• Austin, KLRU-TV, Channel 18: Monday, 12:30 p.m.; Friday 5:30 a.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m. KLRU2, Cable 20: Tuesday, 11 p.m.
• Bryan-College Station, KAMU-TV, Channel 15: Sunday, 5 p.m.; Thursday, 7 p.m.
• Corpus Christi, KEDT-TV, Channel 16: Sunday, 12 p.m.; Friday, 2 p.m.
• Dallas-Fort Worth, KERA-TV, Channel 13: October–March, Saturday, 6 p.m. Also serving Abilene, Denton, Longview, Marshall, San Angelo, Texarkana, Tyler, Wichita Falls and Sherman.
• El Paso, KCOS-TV, Channel 13: Saturday, 3 p.m.
• Harlingen, KMBH-TV, Channel 60: Sunday, 5 p.m. Also serving McAllen, Mission and Brownsville.
• Houston, KUHT-TV, Channel 8: Saturday, 3:30 p.m.; Friday 1:30 p.m. Also serving Beaumont, Port Arthur, Galveston, Texas City and Victoria.
• Killeen, KNCT-TV, Channel 46: Sunday, 5 p.m. Also serving Temple.
• Lubbock, KTXT-TV, Channel 5: Saturday, 10 a.m.
• Odessa-Midland, KPBT-TV, Channel 36: Saturday, 4:30 p.m.
• San Antonio and Laredo, KLRN-TV, Channel 9: Sunday, 1 p.m.
• Waco, KWBU-TV, Channel 34: Saturday, 3 p.m.
• Portales, New Mexico, KENW-TV, Channel 3: Sunday, 2:30 p.m.
• The New York Network, NYN, Thursday 8:30 p.m.; Saturday 2:30 p.m. Serving the Albany area.

Cable

Texas Parks & Wildlife can also be seen on a variety of government, educational and access cable channels in the following communities: Abilene, Allen, Atlanta, Boerne, Collin County Community College, Coppell, Del Mar College, Denton, Flower Mound, Frisco, Garland, Irving, McKinney, North Richland Hills, Plano, Rogers State University, Texarkana College, The Colony, Tyler, Waco and Wichita Falls. Check your local listings for days and times.

TPW TV - Panhandle Fires Then and Now Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Battleship TEXAS — permanently anchored in Buffalo Bayou — is the last remaining Dreadnaught warship.

That’s a type of battleship that came about in the early nineteen hundreds.

Andy Smith is superintendent of the Battleship TEXAS State Historic site. The ship’s keel was laid in 1911; it was launched in 1912.

We’re looking at almost a hundred year old battleship that is still around, and it’s the only one like it left in the world.

And at nearly a hundred years old, it’s seen better days. November sixth Texans vote on sixteen constitutional amendments. Among them is proposition four — a bond issue that would provide funding for many state agencies for major capital repairs to existing facilities, including Battleship TEXAS.

There is 25-million or so — out of proposition four money — that is earmarked for the battleship. Of course our jobs as stewards of this great ship are to make it last for the next generation and generations after that. We just have not had the money recently to make the repairs like we could with that proposition four money.

The bond money would help build a dry berth. This would get the ship out of the Houston Ship Channel so it’s no longer exposed to corrosive seawater. Learn more about this unique national treasure when you visit passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show for today… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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Learn more about Proposition 4.

Proposition 4: Battleship Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Wildlife Restoration Program

Calling a brown-headed cowbird a cowbird, is a misnomer as far as biologist Marsha May is concerned.

I think they should be called bison birds, and not cowbirds, because they evolved with the bison.

Semantics aside, the bird’s habit of laying its eggs in other birds’ nests can cause the decline of species with small populations, such as the endangered Black-capped Vireo. Additional species are also impacted.

Woodland species are now being impacted by brown-headed cowbirds, because we’ve fragmented the woods. Previously those woodland species were protected by the woods. Now that it’s fragmented, the cowbirds are getting into that habitat, and they’re parasitizing birds that have never historically been parasitized before.

The cowbird is in the blackbird family. The male has a black body and brown head, while the female is mottled brown and gray. Want to intervene on songbirds’ behalf.

You can actually become certified in Texas to trap for cowbirds, and that’s mainly during the breeding season, between March first and May thirty-first. And, mainly you’re trying to trap the females.

Information on the certification program can be found at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show… we receive support from the Wildlife Restoration Program… funded by your purchase of shooting and hunting equipment.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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Find information about the Cowbird Trapping Program when you click here.

Brown-headed Cowbird, Part 2 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Wildlife Restoration Program

The brown-headed cowbird migrated with bison across the Great Plains. Because it’s hard to raise a family on the road, cowbirds laid their eggs in other nests; host birds unwittingly raised their young.

The problem with the cowbird eggs is that normally they’re big eggs; they hatch earlier than the host eggs do; and they’re very vocal and hungry and beg for food.

Biologist, Marsha May, says the cowbird hatchlings starve out and kick out the host’s offspring, putting a dent in the population of that species. Back when bison roamed, cowbirds didn’t have quite the same impact.

Black-capped vireos, which are an endangered species now, evolved where if they were parasitized by a brown-headed cowbird, they would leave that nest and re-nest – start a new nest. Well, if the cowbirds had already moved through, that would have worked.

Without bison, cowbirds hang with cows. Because cows are fenced in and don’t migrate, neither do cowbirds.

They’re parasitizing all the birds in that area – their nests – and they’re having a major impact on some species like the black capped vireo, because the black-capped vireo keeps re-nesting and that’s wasting a lot of energy, and if it’s constantly being parasitized, then no young will be reproduced at all that year.

We’ll have more on cowbirds tomorrow.

That’s our show… we receive support from the Wildlife restoration Program… funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuels.

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

Brown-headed Cowbird, Part 1 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download