HOUSTON TOAD: Houston toads find themselves homeless. 
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SFX [Houston toad call]
 
The Houston toad makes that sound, and it's become a 
rare sound over the past two decades. Years of drought 
and habitat destruction have diminished the Houston toad 
population to only a few hundred.

Michael Forstner is a professor at Texas State University.
Through the TPWD Landowner Incentive Program, he's 
worked with private landowners in Bastrop County to 
restore habitat for the Houston toad. 

10 -- Moast of the people in Bastrop want to live in Bastrop County 
because it looks a certain way. And if it keeps looking like the lost 
pines, we keep the toad.

So what do these "lost pines" look like? 

21 -- Imagine a cathedral forest. Most of the habitat that we find Houston 
toads doing the best in, whatever that means for its current levels, are 
gallery forests. Those are the forests that you see in the images for 
computer desktop wallpapers. Those are large-trunked trees with open 
space beneath them.


By planting the fast-growing loblolly pine trees, a habitat 
can be restored in about twenty years.

So if current efforts are successful, Forstner says the 
Houston toad population could make a comeback.

07 -- The best thing about the Houston toad is they make 6,000 eggs at a 
time. Those babies just need a place to grow up.



Find more information on endangered species, including 
the Houston Toad, on the TPW website.

The sport Fish and Wildlife Restgoration Program supports 
our series ... For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I'm Cecilia Nasti.

Total sound bite time:			0:41.0
Maximum Script time:			0:44.0	 	 Suggested show time: 85.0 = 
1:25