Category: News

This year has been especially dry primarily because of all the rain Texas has missed over this past spring. Summer is usually a period of low rainfall, but wildfires have been particularly bad this year because of on-going, prolonged drought. Much of Texas is in “extreme” drought as classified by the weather pros. Wildfires have plagued the landscape lately, with the latest wildfire burning at Matador Wildlife Management Area (WMA).

On June 13, 2011, it was reported that eleven Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Wildlife Division employees and seven State Parks staff members assisted local firefighters in battling a wildfire on the Matador WMA that started Saturday after a lightning strike. The fire was under control within 24 hours and contained inside firebreak lines. The wildfire burned more than 10,000 acres of land found on the WMA, primarily on its the western side.

Prescribed burning is a very important management tool for maintaining and enhancing grasslands. However, the fire that burned the WMA was unplanned. However, fire was an important natural part in the development and maintenance of grasslands, forests, and wetlands, throughout history. To many of us, fire is a feared enemy that destroys everything in its path. Because of this, the use of controlled fires, such as prescribed burning, is underutilized as a management tool for improving and maintaining habitats.

“For thousands of years, tall grass prairies and open brushlands were kept free of trees by the occasional wildfires that cleared the landscape every two to 50 years. These fires were caused by lightning, or set intentionally by Native Americans. They had discovered that fire killed woody plants, but encouraged fruit bearing shrubs, and forage producing grasslands.

Present day research and experience have shown that prescribed burning can be an effective management tool. Prescribed burns are used most frequently to maintain and restore native grasslands, and help songbird and quail populations. Prescribed burning can recycle nutrients tied up in old plant growth, control many woody plants and herbaceous weeds, improve poor quality forage, increase plant growth, reduce the risk of large wildfires, and improve certain wildlife habitat. To achieve the above benefits, fire must be used under very specific conditions, using very specific techniques.”

Although native plants are well adapted to wildfires, wildlife managers prefer prescribed burning, also called controlled burning, for habitat management. Biologists located at the Matador WMA have used prescribed fire in the past, but they did not have an option this time. Much of the herbaceous vegetation will green-up quickly, with the woody plants following close behind. Expect the area burned by this wildfire to provide excellent habitat and deer hunting in just a few years.

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White-tailed deer and the laws that regulate them are a big deal in Texas. Several of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s (TPWD) programs encompass deer management options for rural and suburban landowners. The Trap, Transport and Process (TTP) Permit is designed to help the latter with urban and suburban deer control efforts. A new bill, SB 498, is intended to clean up and simplify the current legislation for the Trap, Transport and Process permit by removing county judge and/or county commissioners from having to sign off on the project before the permit is issued by TPWD.

The idea behind this change in TTP permit regulation is that this keeps the authority to issue the permit within only TPWD without seeking outside approval, which typically slows down the process.The TTP permit allows landowners with surplus whitetail deer, including both whitetail and mule deer, the opportunity to capture and remove deer from their lands. The program also makes sure that all venison is donated to a charitable organization.

The bill concerning deer management in Texas recently passed through both the Texas House and Senate earlier this week and and is on its way to Governor Rick Perry’s desk for the final step in the legislation process. If it receives his signature, SB 498 outlining the TTP permit will be become state law. This will not have any impact on Texas hunting in the areas impact because this permit is almost exclusively used by suburban areas where hunting is prohibited.

Mountain lions are solitary animals. Because they are rarely observed by people—even in their natural habitat—it was a huge surprise when a mountain lion showed up in downtown El Paso. The lion that authorities first had tried to tranquilize led law enforcement officers, a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) game warden captain and city animal control officers on a wild chase through the center of the city. When it was all over, the mountain lion was shot and killed in El Paso. It seems wild animals can show up anywhere and anything can happen.

The mountain lion was a male weighing 102 pounds. The lion was first seen on railroad tracks near downtown around 8:30 a.m. by Union Pacific employees. They contacted El Paso’s animal control unit, which began looking for the cat. A short time later, a passerby saw the animal enter the parking garage of a state office building at 401 E. Franklin, where TPWD game wardens have their offices along with several other government agencies.

Once the animal had been cornered in the garage, a Texas Department of Health veterinarian shot it with a tranquilizer dart. However, before the drug could take full effect, it jumped from the second floor of the garage back onto the street, heading north out of downtown with multiple agencies right on it’s tail.

Passing through a school yard, the mountain lion ran about a half-mile north to H&H Car Wash at 701 E. Yandell Dr., where Newman and other officers evacuated several customers and lowered the business’s vehicle security gate to trap the mountain lion inside. The animal eventually went down, but it did not lose consciousness so the veterinarian shot it with a second tranquilizer dart. Despite that injection, the mountain lion took off and hit the fence, finding a space it was able to crawl through.

It appeared that the lion was about to escape again, so two officers shot and killed the animal shortly before 10:30 a.m. The mountain lion will go to El Paso animal control facilities, and there will eventually be a necropsy analysis done.

There are occasional reports of mountain lions within the city limits, which is only about a mile from the Rio Grande River and in near proximity to the Franklin Mountains. Three or four years ago a TPWD game warden shot and killed a mountain lion in one of El Paso’s west side neighborhood that backed up to the mountain range. This seems like a lot of lion activity in recent years, so I can only suspect that the area has a healthy mountain lion population.

Texas is still home to Desert Bighorn sheep, but there are not as many as there once were. In the late 1800s there were perhaps up to 1,500 sheep in the rugged mountains of Trans-Pecos Texas. However, due mainly to unregulated hunting and diseases from domestic and exotic livestock, Texas bighorn numbers dwindled to about 500 in 1903 and by the 1960s they were gone. But bighorn sheep, like Texans, are tough.

Today bighorn sheep are coming back thanks to decades of work by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), wildlife conservation groups, private landowners and others. TPWD biologists this past September observed 1,115 sheep in Texas, which is up from 822 in 2006 and only 352 in 2002. This steady climb back from the brink is due in part to relocation and restoration of wild sheep into areas where bighorns had once been extirpated. The increase in bighorn sheep in West Texas is great, but more work remains.

The Bofecillos Mountains of Big Bend Ranch State Park are next on the list of priority areas of historic bighorn range in Texas where sheep have not yet been restored. Establishing sheep in the park will increase numbers and diversity of the bighorn population in Texas, help restore the park’s native wildlife ecology and provide an outstanding new visitor wildlife viewing opportunity. In years to come, public hunting in the park may also be possible, although that is not the primary restoration goal.

“This puts an animal in its rightful place,” said Ruben Cantu, TPWD Wildlife Division regional director in San Angelo. “Its home is mountain ranges in West Texas. This is a desert mountain icon, an important component of the ecosystem.”

About 40 desert bighorn sheep were captured at Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area using a helicopter and moved by trailer to Big Bend Ranch State Park in mid-December. It was the latest phase of a multi-partner wildlife restoration project begun in 1954, and the first bighorn reintroduction at a Texas state park. Big Bend Ranch bighorn restoration is a collaborative effort between TPWD’s Wildlife and State Parks Divisions.

All hunters born on or after September 2, 1971, and 17 years old or older must have completed a Texas Hunter Education class to legally hunt in Texas, unless they purchase a one-time Hunter Education Deferral. As necessary as hunter education classes are, they can not be offered without trained instructors. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) will be conducting a free hunter education new instructor training workshop on Saturday, March 12, 2011, in Waco.

The hunter education program’s goals are to reduce hunting-related accidents and violations; promote safe, responsible and knowledgeable hunting; and enhance hunting traditions and values. Hunter education provides instruction in Texas hunting regulations, wildlife management and identification, conservation, ethics, firearm and hunting safety and responsibility and outdoor skills. The hunter workshop will be from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at 8451 Gholsen Road in Waco.

Instruction will be offered for new applicants and currently certified hunter education instructors in skills trail, live firing exercises and home study procedures. The training puts fun and exciting activities into the learning experience. Students will benefit by going through actual hunting simulations and by making their own decisions regarding responsible actions using “shoot-don’t-shoot” scenarios.

Before attending this workshop, you must go to the following web site and prepare yourself by going over the hunter education instructor training manual. You will sign an acknowledgement and release that you have done this pre-workshop assignment as part of your training. The site can be found here.

Once again, every Texas hunter (whether a resident or non-resident) born on or after September 2, 1971, must successfully complete a hunter education course. By understanding hunting through education, hunters and non-hunters alike will help make a bright future for the sport. To register to become a hunter education instructor, contact TPWD Area Chief Brent Heath at (254) 722-5660.

For landowners interested in Lesser Prairie Chicken, their is a new bird in town! The website lesserprairiechicken.org is new to and makes its debuts this month. The idea behind the site is to help Texas landowners interesting in this a rare native bird whose fate is becoming increasingly linked to the future of land use, agriculture and industry in the Texas Panhandle and Rolling Plains.

The lesser prairie chicken has been a candidate species considered for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act since 1998. Like all rare animals, the chicken’s existence depends on the rare wildlife habitat that they require—native prairie. Biologists say efforts to protect and restore grassland habitat for the lesser prairie chicken will benefit many other wildlife species that use these same areas and also provide recreational and ecological benefits for people. Grassland restoration will also enhance water quantity and quality.

The new prairie chicken website was created by the Dorothy Marcille Wood Foundation and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to inform and educate ranchers, farmers and other landowners with all the information they need in one place. That includes information on the Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances (CCAA), and habitat management incentives, programs, and cost share assistance from various state, federal and private sources, including a search tool to help determine which programs best fit their operation.

If you have never been to the Caprock Canyons State park then you are really missing out. Not only is this Panhandle-located park beautiful, but it’s home to the the Caprock Canyons or Texas State Bison Herd. These buffalo, as many commonly call them, are descendants of the historic bison herd that Panhandle ranchers Charles and Mary Goodnight saved from extinction. It was in 1876 that Goodnight captured some of the last of the great southern plains bison herd and placed them on his JA Ranch to preserve them for posterity.

However, it was not until 1997 that JA Ranch owners donated the bison to the State of Texas and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD). Then the animals were moved to Caprock Canyons in 1998. The small Texas State Bison Herd is thus all that remains of the vast southern plains herd that prior to the 1870s was estimated to number between 30 to 60 million head. The American bison were almost totally wiped out when the last of the plains Indians were driven from their homeland and the railroad brought hordes of buffalo hunters who slaughtered the animals for their meat, hides and horns.

The Goodnight Herd was one of the five foundation herds that supplied stock to save American bison from extinction and the only southern plains bison herd established. The Caprock Canyons bison are the last descendants of the herd which supplied wild stock for Yellowstone National Park, in addition to some of the largest zoos and ranches in the nation. The bison brought from the JA Ranch to the park were genetically tested, and TPWD kept only those which had no cattle DNA.

Through continued study and genetic mapping of the Texas State Bison Herd, researchers have isolated three unique genetic markers in their DNA. Found only in the Goodnight Herd descendants, presence of these genes supports the claim that these buffalo are all that remain of the southern plains subspecies and are separate from northern plains and woods bison subspecies.