Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Buffalo soldiers were heroes in their time; examples of courage and hard work. But their accomplishments, seldom taught in classrooms, leave many young African American students, like Greg McClanahan, with a limited sense of their history.

They didn’t teach us nothing in school but that we were slaves. They didn’t teach us that we were heroes or nothing. In history, all you ever heard about was slaves this, and slaves that. You didn’t hear about no black heroes.

McClanahan attends public school in Kerrville, where he met Buffalo Soldier reenactors from Parks and Wildlife.

What we are doing is taking the legacy of the Buffalo Soldier into the cities and into the schools. And we feel that sharing this story, that we can instill some pride and some resolve in them.

Ken Pollard coordinates Buffalo Soldiers Heritage & Community Outreach for Parks and Wildlife. He said he found out about the Buffalo Soldiers as an adult, but wished he’d known about them earlier.

My relatives and kinfolk were cowboys, man. We didn’t have any black cowboys or soldiers, you know, to really look up to. For me, to have the black heroes there when I was growing up, that sense of pride would have been instilled in me. But if I had grown up with that—they would have been my heroes.

Find information about Buffalo Soldiers Heritage & Community Outreach on the TPW website.

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

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This is Passport to Texas

[military maneuvers] Establish, fade, roll under actuality & script.

[singing] I was once a captured slave. Now I’m just a black man who came to be….[fade and play under script]

In the 19th Century, Black men who served in the 9th and 10th Regiments of Cavalry and 24th and 25th Regiments of Infantry of the United States Army were known as…

I am a Buffalo Soldier!

It’s said the Indians whom they fought during the Indian Wars gave troops the name because of their hair texture and their courage and ferocity in battle.

He feared and respected the buffalo. And he learned to fear and respect the black soldier as well.

That’s Buffalo Soldier reenactor, John Olivera, who says Buffalo soldiers played a major role in settling Texas.

Seventy-five percent of the soldiers that settled this area were Buffalo Soldiers. The only white men that were with them were the commanding officers. Almost all of the forts were manned and built by Buffalo Soldiers.

Texas Parks & Wildlife Department offers Texas Buffalo Soldier Outdoor Educational Programs. Find their schedule on the Parks and Wildlife website.

The Buffalo Soldiers fought not only the Indians, and outlaws, but racism and prejudice. We had a job to do, and we done it.

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

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This is Passport to Texas SP Getaways

Bryan Frazier works for State Parks, and will join us regularly to talk about your state parks. This week, he’s taking us to Mustang Island.

Mustang Island State Park…you’re talking about almost 4-thousand acres of park that goes on both sides of the bay and the gulf.

Whether you’re talking about red fish or black drum or speckled trout, things that the Texas coast is famous for—Mustang Island SP is a great place.

Thanks, Bryan.

Check availability and reserve your campsite at Mustang Island SP by visiting the TPW website.

That’s our show…watch State Park videos on the TPW channel on YouTube channel…

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

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This is Passport to Texas

Planting native trees in your landscape provides pleasing aesthetics, shade in summer, and habitat for wildlife. Late winter is still a good time to add new trees to your yard.

They have the dormant season to spread roots out.

Certified arborist Scott Harris says planting trees before summer arrives gives them an advantage.

You can plant a tree if you really baby it in the summertime; but you won’t gain any growth on it until after that first cool season, anyway. The only thing you’ll gain is getting it behind you. You won’t have a bigger tree for it.

The best trees to plant are natives. Native trees evolved with local wildlife and weather, both of which keep them in check. Non-native trees have no such relationships, which can make them a nuisance.

Unfortunately, they’re still on the market out there, and you can still buy them everywhere. They’ll spread seeds that the people at the parks and preserves will have to spend hours and hours cutting down and taking away so that the natives can thrive, so that the wildlife can thrive, and the environment can function the way its supposed to.

You can find lists of native plants for your landscape on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

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

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This is Passport to Texas

For more than a decade, researchers at the Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center in Kerrville have battled the hybrid progeny of Guadalupe bass—the state fish of Texas—and the introduced Smallmouth bass.

We’re raising thousands of pure Guadalupe bass here at the research station. And every year we stock them back into nature. Basically, what we’re doing is replacing the hybrids that are out there with these pure Guadalupe bass. And we’ll let nature take its course form there.

That’s Gary Garrett, who initiated the Guadalupe bass recovery program. The fish exists only in the Texas Hill Country—in the headwaters of streams that drain the Edward’s Plateau.

Shortly after non-native smallmouth bass were introduced to Texas waters, they bred with native bass, resulting in an explosion of hybrids. But using a technique called “saturation stocking,” Garrett and his crew have made exceptional progress.

So far we’re seeing here in Johnson Creek, where we began eh study, we started where 30 percent of the fish were hybrids. And that wasn’t stable—it was still increasing when we started. It is now down to around three percent. Which is excellent! Top go from thirty to three is great. Now we want to go from three to zero.

And Garrett expects to reach zero in the next four to five years.

That’s our show… we receive support from the SF Restoration program…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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