Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Have you ever watched National Geographic specials about sea turtle restoration, including the release of baby sea turtles and wished you could see it for yourself. Well, you can…on South Padre Island. Bryan Frazier explains.

There’s a partnership effort going on for sea turtles. And you have Sea Turtle, Inc., non-profit rescue service. You have Texas Parks and Wildlife involved sea turtle restoration, you have the national park service and lots of other conservation groups.

Summer is the end of the hatchings being returned. They’ve all come out of the nest. The effort is year-round in terms of rescue and managing that habitat. And it’s a real success story. They’re slowly and gradually getting those populations back to viable numbers. And all stories like that are neat and interesting, but to see it firsthand…they’re just beautiful animals, and South Padre has established itself as a real flagship area for that.

Thanks, Bryan!

That’s our show for today…with funding provided by Chevrolet…building dependable, reliable trucks for more than 90 years.

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

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This is Passport to Texas

Texas has nine native bumblebee species. Loss of habitat to agriculture, use of pesticides, as well as European honeybees competing for food, threatens these important pollinators.

05— And so if we have a reduction in bumblebees, that spells trouble for our ecosystems.

Michael Warriner, invertebrate biologist says, because Texas bumblebees have evolved with native flora as pollinators, fewer native bees would eventually translate to fewer native plants, which would impact other living things…

10—The birds and the mammals and other insects that depend on plants for fruit, or seeds, or just the functioning ecosystem.

While we give non-native European honeybees credit for pollinating our food crops, in some instances, bumblebees outperform them.

14—Bumblebees, although they aren’t talked about a lot as important pollinators, they’re much better and more efficient than honeybees. They’re the best pollinators for things like tomatoes, blueberries, cranberries, melons, and those sorts of crops.

You can find more bumblebee information at Warriner’s website, texasbumblebees.com.

11—And if you’re interested in being a bumblebee watcher, check out the website, and if you see any bumblebees in your garden, just send in photos. We’re really trying to learn how bumblebees are doing.

That’s our show for today…For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti

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This is Passport to Texas

We all know about colony collapse disorder whereby colonies of European honeybees seem to vanish.

05—Less well known are the threats facing a lot of our native bumblebees.

Michael Warriner is an invertebrate biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife. Like other native wildlife species in Texas, habitat loss is taking its toll on native bumblebees.

09—Bumblebees need open, flower-rich habitat—like grasslands. And, a lot of that habitat’s been converted to agriculture.

Warriner says pesticide use is another concern, but the threats to these big black and yellow insects doesn’t stop there.

12—And also, there’s been the importation of bumblebees from Europe into this country which has brought in parasites and diseases that may be impacting them. So, there’s a lot of concern how they’re faring in North America.

One of the threats to Texas bumblebees might actually be honeybees, which have colonies in the tens of thousands compared to the hundreds of insects in a bumblebee colony.

19—Honeybees have these tens of thousands of workers, and so they can go out and monopolize a flower resource—like nectar or pollen—and that reduces what’s available for our native bees. And there’s some research that suggests that the presence of honeybees in natural sites can reduce native bees.

We’ll have the potential impact from bumblebee decline tomorrow.

That’s our show for today…For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti

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This is Passport to Texas

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06—Most people when you say the word ‘bee’ their mind automatically goes to the European honeybee.

Michael Warriner, an invertebrate biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife, says Texas has plenty of native bee species…they’re just not as attention grabbing as honeybees.

08—Most of our bees are called solitary bees. They live on their own; they don’t live in big colonies. They don’t make honey, per se.

While solitary bees are easy to miss and dismiss, our native bumblebees are not.

05—Bumblebees are basically big flying balls of fur.

These large furry slow moving insects with their distinctive black and yellow markings deserve our attention and appreciation.

17—Because they’re so tied into the plant life here. They’ve adapted through hundreds of thousands of years to pollinate these plants, and these plants are dependent on native bees, less so honeybees. Honeybees aren’t necessarily geared toward pollinating our native plants.

But times are getting tough for our native bees.

08—A lot of people know about honeybee decline. Less well-known are the threats facing a lot of our native bees like bumblebees.

We’ll hear about that on tomorrow’s show.

That’s our show for today…we record our series at The Block House…and Joel Block engineers our program.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti

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This is Passport to Texas

It’s August: time to renew hunting and fishing licenses.

06—The licenses are effective beginning September first, but they actually go on sale August 15th.

Licenses are valid as of the date of purchase. Tom Newton manages licensing at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

20—The fishing is broken down into saltwater or freshwater, or what we call an all-water, which covers both. There’s a couple of different hunting licenses, which is your standard deer hunters, or turkey hunters. With the hunting license you have to purchase a couple of stamps. If you’re a bird hunter you’ll need the upland game bird stamp.

If you’re a dove or duck hunter you’ll need a migratory game bird stamp and the federal duck stamp. The best license to buy — if you plan on hunting and fishing — is the Super Combo.

17—Which encompasses everything: All the stamps, all of your hunting options, all of your fishing options. The only thing you need in addition to that is your federal duck stamp. So, the Super Combo is the best priced license. And, like I say, you buy that, you need nothing else for the whole year.

Buy your licenses early and avoid the rush. They’re available online and at 17-hundred agents statewide.

06—All of our parks sell licenses. All of our law enforcement sells licenses as we do here at Headquarters.

The Wildlife restoration program supports our series and works to increase shooting and hunting opportunities in Texas

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

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