Passport to Texas

Curved Bill Thrasher at Christmas Mountains Oasis

TPW TV - West Texas Wetland Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

In a region best known for its rugged terrain and dry desert ecology, avid birders, Carolyn Ohl-Johnson and her late husband Sherwood, created something magical in the Christmas Mountains of West Texas.

It’s a refuge for birds, butterflies.

Started in the 1990s, the couple developed ways to capture water that fell or flowed on their property.

And I told him how we could put in some diversion dams, and he just hopped right on that without greasing his equipment the same day! And so we started out with one tank that wasn’t nearly big enough.

So began a lifelong passion to establish an oasis in the middle of the desert to draw birds to her West Texas home. The Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS features Carolyn’s oasis on this week’s show.

I can be sitting here, just looking at the same old stuff, and bet money that nothing interesting’s gonna come along. And there, all of a sudden, oh my gosh, there’s a lifer! But it won’t happen if I’m not sitting here looking, so what do you do! You sure don’t get much work done, that’s for sure.

Tune into the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS through August fourth to see not only Carolyn’s oasis, but another lush wetland project in West Texas. Check your local listings.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Mother Black Bear and cub in Big Bend National Park.

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This is Passport to Texas

Smiley Nava served as borderlands biologist at Texas Parks and Wildlife before retiring. His job involved understanding and developing conservation strategies for the natural resources along the shared border between Texas and Mexico.

We have ecosystems; we have natural resources that we share between Mexico and the state of Texas. We’re talking about an area that is a little over 12-hundred miles in length – from El Paso, Ciudad Juarez – to the mouth of the Rio Grand. And that’s all inclusive of the area that is my project.

Nava identified local, state and governmental partners in Mexico to join this mission. During his tenure, Nava said one border city, in particular, lead the way.

The City of Nuevo Laredo, they have an ecological department. It’s a sub directoria de la ecología – as it’s called — subdirectory of ecology. They make sure that there’s conservation implemented… if they’re clearing out trees that they’re replanted with native vegetation. And they’re very proactive… They’re setting the example and showing their other cities along the border how this can work and be beneficial.

Learn more about Borderlands Ecology and other conservation topics on the Texas parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife Restoration Program supports our series.

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

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.

Dr. Grubh searching for bugs.

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This is Passport to Texas

The Blanco River flood of 2015 devastated vegetation along the river banks, and demolished river substrate.

These flood levels were really huge. Regular discharge on the Blanco river is about 90cfs, which means cubic feet per second, and it peaked around 150,000 cfs.

Archis Grubh is an aquatic biologist.

 I primarily focus on the invertebrates.

He says that flood knocked out nearly 90 percent of the river’s invertebrates, which are essentially aquatic bugs.

Invertebrates are really good indicators of water quality. Because, if the water quality is going down, those are the first ones to disappear from the water.

Since the flood, Dr. Grubh’s collected specimens, which he’s taken back to his lab.

We collect three samples; we just dump all whatever we have. There’s gonna be tons of insects packed in it. It’s very important, because I’m studying and finding out what all the diversity of these invertebrates are. So, I am capturing a snapshot here and recording what all we find.

Diversity means a healthier river ecosystem overall. Grubh’s research will help in future river management.

[I want to find out] Which ones were most affected and how they are doing now.

Learn more about Dr. Grubh and his work next week on a segment of the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS.

The Wildlife and Sportfish Restoration program supports our series.

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

Flowers of Tobusch fishhook cactus can be yellowish-green (or golden-yellow or bright yellow – not shown).

Less can be More with Some Rare Species Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Sometimes the best course of action is no action at all. At least that’s the stance botanist, Jackie Poole, takes when it comes to the endangered Tobusch Fishhook Cactus and the insect grubs that eat it.

And that’s a real problem, because one of these insects is only known to lay its eggs in Tobusch Fishhook Cactus; so, it’s basically as rare as the cactus.

In the case of the Tobusch cactus – and its nemesis the Tobusch weevil – the best botanists can do is observe.

We’ve just been studying it for the last 10 or 15 years to see if there’s some kind of cyclical nature to this predator/prey relationship—where you have a big prey population buildup, like a lot of Tobusch fishhook cactus are out there, and then all of a sudden the insect population starts to boom because it has so many cactus to lay its eggs in. And then the cactus goes away and then it crashes, and then you just go through this cycle back and forth.

Other variables could also come into play to explain these fluctuations; making a hasty solution no solution at all. Patience is necessary.

That’s right. And that’s the main thing I think with endangered species. I often tell people to just to take a deep breath, because you just need to sit back and think about it and look at it and not think that the sky is falling.

Learn about rare and endangered plants on the Texas parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

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