Passport to Texas

It may look cute, but don’t be fooled. Feral swine are destroying Texas.

Feral Swine: Bad for Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The morning after Memorial Day, I spotted a group of feral pigs in a field. They’re usually nocturnal; perhaps flooding from heavy rains forced them from their hidden wallow.

14-Feral swine–or feral pigs–are not native to north America. They’re basically domestic swine gone wild, which have interbred with Eurasian wild boars, which were brought over in the 1900s, mainly for hunting purposes.

Wildlife biologist, Donnie Frels says more than 2.5 million of these hybrid animals roam Texas, causing extensive economic and environmental damage.

14- It’s been estimated by the Extension Service, that each year, Texas realizes about $50-million dollars in AG damage alone caused by feral swine, and about $200-million dollars in total damage each year.

Feral pigs are omnivores, and eat plants, insects, amphibians, reptiles, and even small mammals.

12- They compete with our native animals for acorns, fruits and mast during specific times of the year, which is how they negatively impact many of our game species.

How we’re attempting to control feral pigs. That’s tomorrow.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Paddlefish

Improving River Flows for Paddlefish and Beyond Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

The batteries in the radio transmitters used to track 47 paddlefish reintroduced to Caddo Lake more than a year ago are fading.

06—We’re still tracking some paddlefish, but we know this is about the time we’re not going to be able to track ‘em anymore.

Native to Caddo, paddlefish disappeared following construction of a dam upstream at Lake of the Pines in the late 1950s.

Tim Bister, with Inland Fisheries, says early data suggest changes Texas Parks and Wildlife and partners made to simulate natural river flows and spawning habitat, kept the rare fish in the Big Cyprus Bayou and Caddo Lake system.

21—Having the opportunity to restore a native fish into the system, is certainly a good idea. But, to tie it into more of these natural river flows, and the idea that not just paddlefish—but
many other species—need natural river flows and appropriate spawning habitat, it’s going to benefit those things for rivers in Texas.

Bister says while they’ll continue monitoring paddlefish, the ongoing work is more expansive.

12— We will always be trying to do something in the Big Cyprus Bayou / Caddo Lake system to maintain quality river flow and quality habitat, and to monitor the fish populations.

The Wildlife and Sportfish Restoration Program supports our series.

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

Paddlefish at hatchery, photo courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service

Revisiting Paddlefish in Big Cyprus Bayou Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Paddlefish, once abundant in the Big Cypress Bayou and Caddo Lake, started disappearing following construction of a dam at Lake of the Pines in the late 1950s.

07- So, basically, it took away the flows that the paddlefish need, and it took away their spawning substrate; eventually paddlefish just went away.

Inland fisheries’ Tim Bister says in spring 2014 a broad coalition of non-profits, landowners, and government agencies, reintroduced paddlefish into the system. But they first made improvements to benefit the rare species, including development of natural water releases upstream from Lake of the Pines, and gravel bar spawning areas.

14-We stocked 47 paddlefish, a year and a half old, between two and three feet long. And each were implanted with a radio transmitter, with a specific radio frequency that could be identified by a radio receiver.

Researchers tracked the paddlefish to see whether they would swim downstream over the spillway at Caddo Lake, and into Louisiana.

12-[If they did], they wouldn’t be able to swim back upstream because of that barrier. So, we wanted to make sure, by tracking these paddlefish, to see if they’re going to stay in the system. And after a year, I’m happy to say, that no fish were seen going over the spillway.

The radio transmitter batteries are fading, but the data collected so far is promising. Until the paddlefish reach reproductive maturity, we won’t know if we’ll see a self-sustaining population in Big Cypress Bayou and Caddo Lake.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Supports our series.

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

Oyster Bed

Restoring Oyster Habitat After Ike Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Texas lost 8-thousand acres of submerged oyster habitat when Hurricane Ike blew into the gulf in 2008. Some reefs will restore naturally; other will receive some help.

24- We are trying to accelerate that that recovery effort by putting some the materials down to allow new oysters to settle on. We also worked closely with the commercial industry and got them involved in pulling their dredges up with bags off of them across some of these reefs that were marginally covered up, and to pull the shell back to the surface to provide that substrate for young oysters to attach to and start growing.

Lance Robinson is with coastal fisheries. Ike pushed saltwater and debris 15-20 miles inland, which decimated saltmarsh habitat — habitat that’s a marine nursery for sport and commercial species. Restoration work is ongoing.

12-And it took several weeks just for heavy equipment to get into the marshes to remove the mountains of debris before we could get in and assess what the other impacts were. And at that point it was just gut-wrenching.

As bad as the damage after Ike, Robinsons says it could
have been worse.

13-Both from a human impact and a natural resource impact had the storm tracked a little bit farther to the north. It would have brought the eye farther into the bay, and we would have seen a much more devastating impact.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration project supports our series.

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

Galveston Island. Steve Alexander, president of Galveston Island SP friends group.

Hidden Damage from Hurricane Ike Still Being Repaired Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Few will forget the images from 2008 of the devastation to Galveston Island by Hurricane Ike. Yet, there is Ike caused damage we cannot see.

06- The losses of some of the invaluable habitat associated with Galveston Bay.

Including submerged oyster habitat. Lance Robinson is with coastal fisheries. The hurricane deposited sediment on top of 8-thousand acres of oyster reefs in Galveston Bay. That’s nearly half of the consolidated oyster habitat within the system.

24-That is a huge loss of a valuable resource. Not only from the commercial fishing aspect to it, but for the ecosystem services that they provide that a lot of people don’t really recognize or really see. Such as: water filtration, providing habitat for other fish and crabs and other organisms that are associated with structures. Sort of like an oasis in a desert.

A single adult oyster filters water at a rate of about 50 gallons a day, improving ecosystem water quality.

10-The waste water treatment plants within Houston filter the same amount of water as a hundred and thirty acres of oyster reef; we lost 8-thousand acres of those reefs.

Restoring the reefs–that’s tomorrow.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration project supports our series, and funds diverse conservation projects in Texas.

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