Passport to Texas

Sargassum, Image © Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

Nature: What's up With the Sargassum? Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Every spring and summer, visitors to the Texas coast encounter piles of brown, wet, slimy vegetation lining Texas beaches.

02 – It’s a brown algae called sargassum.

Paul Hammerschmidt, with Coastal Fisheries, says sargassum may accumulate on tide lines for miles.

21 – It belongs to a whole group of plants that belong to the sargassum group. Most of those plants are attached to hard substrate – rocks, shells – that kind of thing. These particular species don’t attach to anything; they’re floating. They have little tiny gas bladders that help the plant float. So, periodically that breaks away and ends up on the Texas beach.

Sargassum originates in the Sargasso Sea, in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.

16 –…in a big floating gyre; a gyre is a big eddy. And this particular sea has no shoreline at all – no land shoreline. It’s surrounded by four different ocean currents that keep that seaweed trapped in this one particular area.

Yet, tons of sargassum escape and end up on Texas shores.

13 – Changes in the currents; winds and storms can occur in the area, and sections of it actually break off and get into the main currents. Those main currents will bring them into the gulf and eventually onto the beaches.

Tomorrow: the value of sargassum.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish restoration program supports our series.

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

Neches Paddling Trail, Image © Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

Recreation: Paddling Trail Program Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Paddling down a river, or on a lake, bay or bayou is great summer fun; yet, access to public waterways is a challenge in Texas.

04— Texas is definitely a private land state; more than 94% of our state is privately owned.

Shelly Plante, paddling trail coordinator, says Parks and Wildlife has an interest in granting people access to public waterways.

24— There are places where you can get in on a river to go canoeing or kayaking and you may not have another public access site for forty miles – which is far more than a day trip. And you are now stuck on a river overnight, or trespassing on private property. So, the paddling trails program allowed us the ability to really educate people where they could go paddling for short day trips, where — if they put in here, six miles downriver there’s going to be another public access site. You will be able to get out.

Communities along waterways apply to participate in the program; Texas has more than 50 inland and coastal trails suitable for all skill levels. Find them all on the paddling trail website.

11— The paddling trail website is great. There are maps for every single trail in the program. And they show you exactly where you’ll be able to put in to go canoeing or kayaking, and where you’ll be able to take out.

On site kiosks provide additional information about conditions you might encounter while underway.

That’s our show…with funding provided by Chevrolet, supporting outdoor recreation in Texas; because there’s life to be done.

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

Safety training in the field.

TPW TV: Shooting Safety Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Smart hunters make time to practice shooting before the season begins. The smartest hunters use proper safety gear. Learn more on the TPW PBS TV series this month. Series producer, Don Cash.

54 –We offer some advice on how to protect your eyes and how to protect your ears when you’re shooting.

You can watch this the week of July 7th on the Texas parks and Wildlife PBS Television show. If you happen to miss it, we’ve got a YouTube channel, a lot of hunter education and hunter related videos there.

Thanks, Don.

Support provided the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program…funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motorboat fuel.

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

Fireworks Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center;Image from KYTX-TV, Tyler

State Parks: No Fireworks in Parks Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

[SFX fireworks]

You can go ahead and pack in just about anything you’ll need to enjoy your Fourth of July celebration at a state park—except fireworks.

06—It is illegal in Texas state parks…it is a Class C misdemeanor to possess fireworks in a state park.

Wes Masur is state park law enforcement coordinator at Texas Parks and Wildlife. Even the relatively benign sparklers, black cats, and bottle rockets are prohibited in state parks not only during the fourth of July…but also during the other 364 days of the year—and for good reason.

09—Within the state park system we have different types of wildlife and different types of grasses and we don’t want to get any type of forest fire started…people are there to enjoy the state parks.

And if it’s even half as dry this year as last year, the last thing anyone wants to do is cause a fire. While a few state parks do offer organized fireworks displays, such holiday pyrotechnics aren’t for everyone.

05—Some people don’t like fireworks…the noises that go along with that stuff—we just don’t allow it in the state parks.

For more information on which state parks offer public fireworks displays, log onto the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

Support provided by Ram Trucks. Doing what’s right and good regardless of the degree of difficulty — takes guts. Those are the people who build Ram trucks. RAM.

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

Sauer Beckmann Living History Farm

Living History: Sauer Beckmann Farm Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Sauer-Beckmann Living History Farm in Stonewall offers visitors a glimpse of life at a turn of the [20th] century Texas German farmstead. Virginia Grona is a site interpreter.

Interpretation for us here at the farm is actually living life early nineteen hundreds to about nineteen eighteen.

That includes wearing period clothing, cooking on a wood stove, tending farm animals, and whatever needs doing on the farm…without the convenience of motorized farm equipment, running water or electricity.

We’re doing it all because we want the visitors to see life like it would have been before electricity and running water. So, we literally work it with those limitations.

Women’s work was extremely physical then, says Grona, and, she adds, those gals were tough.

And you had to be. But everybody was. A lot of people say, well, I couldn’t have done it, but I say, you didn’t have a choice. You had better than your mother had, hopefully, but you don’t know what’s coming, so you just live with what you had at the moment.

Although men and women had different farm jobs, when necessary, everyone worked together.

When things have to be done—whether it’s crops brought in or something major going on—everybody had to work together. That’s the only way a family is going to make it—when everybody’s working together.

Many hands make light work in any century.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.