Goose Island — Losing Ground
Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program
Goose Island is shrinking. Between 1961 and 1995, approximately 17 acres of this island near Rockport ended up underwater.
Goose Island is a small island in Aransas Bay, therefore it gets all the prevailing winds from the southeast which creates pretty large waves. And those waves have eroded the southern shoreline of Goose Island State Park over the years.
Kay Jenkins, Natural Resources Coordinator for State Parks.
The erosion has lead to a reduction in the amount of estuarine marsh, or salt marsh that once was located on the island. They basically provide a lot of food, as well as protection, especially for juvenile fisheries species.
Texas Parks and Wildlife and its partners developed a plan to stabilize the shoreline and restore the marsh.
With continuing erosion, relative sea level rise, development along the coast, these marshes are becoming more and more valuable because we’re losing them. They’re slowly being converted to open water, which is exactly what happened at Goose Island. We have instigated this project to stabilize that shoreline and restore some of that salt marsh that has been eroded away.
More on that tomorrow….
That’s our show…with research and writing help from Loren Seeger…we receive support from the SFWR program… providing funding for wetland conservation through the Private Lands Enhancement Program.
For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti
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