Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

The Texas Parks and Wildlife television series airs a segment this month that puts the spotlight on a shy flying mammal – the Mexican Free-tailed bat. Ron Kabele is a produce for the show.

And the name of the story is Billion Dollar Bats. It concentrates on the economic impact that bats have. There are more bats in Texas than any other state in the country.

In Austin, along the Congress Street Bridge, there’s anywhere from a million, to a million and a half bats that come out every night. And they eat anywhere from ten to fifteen tons of insects.

These insects feed on agricultural crops, which in turn reduce the productivity of agriculture.

So, farmers love it, because it’s a way of doing natural pesticide control. [begin auction audio] The producer Lee Smith staged this thing with this auctioneer. They’re auctioning cattle and things like that, then they go and they auction these bats [end auction audio]. It’s all staged, but it was cute.

Check your local listings.

That’s our show…for Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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Texas Parks and Wildlife on PBS and Cable
Stations and Air Times
Times and dates are subject to change, especially during PBS membership drives.

• Amarillo, KACV-TV, Channel 2: October–March, Saturday 6 p.m.
• Austin, KLRU-TV, Channel 18: Monday, 12:30 p.m.; Friday 5:30 a.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m. KLRU2, Cable 20: Tuesday, 11 p.m.
• Bryan-College Station, KAMU-TV, Channel 15: Sunday, 5 p.m.; Thursday, 7 p.m.
• Corpus Christi, KEDT-TV, Channel 16: Sunday, 12 p.m.; Friday, 2 p.m.
• Dallas-Fort Worth, KERA-TV, Channel 13: October–March, Saturday, 6 p.m. Also serving Abilene, Denton, Longview, Marshall, San Angelo, Texarkana, Tyler, Wichita Falls and Sherman.
• El Paso, KCOS-TV, Channel 13: Saturday, 3 p.m.
• Harlingen, KMBH-TV, Channel 60: Sunday, 5 p.m. Also serving McAllen, Mission and Brownsville.
• Houston, KUHT-TV, Channel 8: Saturday, 3:30 p.m.; Friday 1:30 p.m. Also serving Beaumont, Port Arthur, Galveston, Texas City and Victoria.
• Killeen, KNCT-TV, Channel 46: Sunday, 5 p.m. Also serving Temple.
• Lubbock, KTXT-TV, Channel 5: Saturday, 10 a.m.
• Odessa-Midland, KPBT-TV, Channel 36: Saturday, 4:30 p.m.
• San Antonio and Laredo, KLRN-TV, Channel 9: Sunday, 1 p.m.
• Waco, KWBU-TV, Channel 34: Saturday, 3 p.m.
• Portales, New Mexico, KENW-TV, Channel 3: Sunday, 2:30 p.m.
• The New York Network, NYN, Thursday 8:30 p.m.; Saturday 2:30 p.m. Serving the Albany area.

Cable

Texas Parks & Wildlife can also be seen on a variety of government, educational and access cable channels in the following communities: Abilene, Allen, Atlanta, Boerne, Collin County Community College, Coppell, Del Mar College, Denton, Flower Mound, Frisco, Garland, Irving, McKinney, North Richland Hills, Plano, Rogers State University, Texarkana College, The Colony, Tyler, Waco and Wichita Falls. Check your local listings for days and times.

TPWD TV -- Billion Dollar Bats Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Podcasts, Shows, TPWD TV, Wildlife. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.