One of the most endangered birds in North America is the Attwater’s Prairie Chicken. Learn about efforts to help protect this species this month on the Texas parks and Wildlife TV series. Producer, Abe Moore.

57—There used to be close to a million of them in Texas and Louisiana; now they’re teetering around a hundred or so. I went down to the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge by Eagle Lake. It’s kind of their last stronghold right now.

So, the team goes through some serious struggles this breeding season, and one of the things that happens is they have an ace up their sleeve to kind of help the Attwater Prairie Chicken from going extinct.

Abe says he won’t provide any clues to that ace. We’ll just have to tune in to find out. Check your local listings.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program supports our series; it’s funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuel. For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

The non-profit Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, or PARC, designated 2012 as the Year of the Lizard.

06—Lizards are a group of organisms that scientists have said: you know, we really haven’t paid much attention to what’s going on with them.

Biologist, Leeann Linam, oversees the Texas Nature Tracker program for Parks and Wildlife. When lizard populations are thriving—or not—chances are they are mirroring the environmental conditions in which they live. Because of this, they deserve our attention.

Leeann says putting the spotlight on these cold-blooded creatures may help us warm to them.

14—if you stop and watch a lizard, they’re really an interesting creature. And I think that’s what the challenge is for us—to spend enough time outside to really observe them. If you zoom in on them, and take a closer look, they’re just really fascinating—like mini dinosaurs.

So how does one best observe the year of the lizard?

14—At Parks and Wildlife we we’ve got some ways for people to participate. For example, our Texas Horned Lizard Watch asks people to become partners with us in monitoring what’s going on with our state reptile—the Texas Horned Lizard—and the other two horned lizard species that are found in the state.

Find links to information about the Year of the Lizard, and the Texas Horned Lizard Watch at passporttotexas.org.

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

Herpetology is a branch of zoology concerned with amphibians and reptiles. Although scientists classify both as herps, Leeann Linam says differences exist.

16—Amphibians are the species that are associated with water in their life-cycle. [They’re] smooth skinned, and usually lay their eggs in water and often have a larval stage such as a tadpole for a frog. So frogs, salamanders, and an interesting creature called the caecilian are amphibians.

Leeann is a biologist with Parks and Wildlife. Reptiles are those species that have scales and tend to lay their eggs on land in dry nests, and have hard-shelled eggs.

13—And so we have several divisions of reptiles as well. We have the turtles, we have the lizards, and we have the snakes… And then there are a few other groups. The crocodilians and some others that are kind of unique.

Of the reptiles, says Leeann, scientists agree they need to give them more consideration.

14—Lizards are a group of organisms that scientists have said: you know, we really haven’t paid much attention to what’s going on with them. They are mostly eating insects in the environment, and so one can perhaps think of them as being sensitive to things like pesticides and habitat loss, as well as direct persecution, or killing, as areas are changed in terms of their use.

Tomorrow: The Year of the Lizard.

That’s our show with support from the wildlife restoration program…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

By the early 1960s native Texas bighorn sheep, which once populated 16 mountain ranges in the Trans Pecos, were gone. Unregulated hunting and disease from domestic sheep brought in by landowners did them in. But Texas Parks and Wildlife TV producer Bruce Biermann says a segment [on the TV show this month] spotlights a successful restoration project.

64—This story is called Home Again, because the bighorn sheep are finally being brought home again. For the very first time they are being released on a state park.

Forty six sheep were captured at Elephant Mountain and released. And, of those forty-six that I know of, they’ve had three die to mountain lions. But, that’s part of the normal cycle. They’ve had many babies already born. So, the birth rate is far outgrowing the death rate. And the population is surviving and thriving.

Thanks Bruce.

The show airs this week.

The Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program… funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuel.

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

Texas is home to nearly fifty species of freshwater mussels.

07—They have just really fun names—like the Texas Pig Toe, and there’s the Louisiana Fat Mucket…

Texas Mussel Watch coordinator, Marsha May, says wherever there’s freshwater, you’re likely to find mussels.

08—The live in freshwater streams, lakes, ponds and even tanks. So you can find them pretty much anywhere in freshwater in Texas.

The only place you’ll have a hard time finding mussels is in deep east Texas where the water is too acidic for the mollusk to survive.

06—They prefer more alkaline water. They need to have that calcium in the water to help them build their shells.

Speaking of those shells…if come upon one with or without its occupant…Marsha May says leave it where you find it.

20—Freshwater mussels are protected. In order to handle the shells or live animals, you have to have some sort of license or permit. Either a fishing license, which you can handle any mussel greater than two and a half inches long for most species, and then, my Mussel Watch volunteers have a scientific permit so they can handle all species.

Learn about Mussel Watch tomorrow.

That’s our show with support from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program…funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuel…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m
Cecilia Nasti.

Freshwater mussels—soft bodied organisms that live inside hard shells—are vital to Texas’ aquatic ecosystems.

03—They’re the foundation of the aquatic ecosystem.

Marsha May is Texas Mussel Watch coordinator, which is part of the Texas Nature Trackers program at Texas Parks and Wildlife.

14—I like to call them the vacuum cleaners of the system. Their main diet is bacteria and other small partials. They’re the filtration systems of the rivers lakes and ponds. So they have a very important role in cleaning that water.

Marsha says mussels are an indicator species—the aquatic equivalent of a canary in a coalmine.

09—They’re definitely a canary in a coalmine. You start losing these freshwater mussels, then you know something definitely detrimental is going on with that system.

We have lost some mussel species. Historically Texas has had more than fifty species of freshwater mussels, but today we’re down to 47.

22—We currently only have one species that’s federally listed as endangered, and that’s the Ouachita rock pocketbook. We’ve never found it alive in Texas; we’ve only found recently dead shells. So it goes on and off the Texas list. We have 11 species that US Fish and Wildlife is looking at possibly listing.

More on mussels tomorrow.

That’s our show with support from the SFWR program… funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuel…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

The nine-banded armadillo is a Texas icon that has captured the imagination and hearts of Texans and non-Texans a like. Sadly, though, the only time some of us have seen an armadillo is in a flattened state on Texas highways.

About the size of a terrier dog…and covered with bony plates the color of pavement…it’s easy to understand why motorists might not see the armadillo as it attempts to cross roadways on summer evenings in search of food.

Speaking of the preferred cuisine of armadillos… they enjoy a diet of worms, beetles, larvae and caterpillars, among other “delicacies.”

Armadillos generally live where the soil is easily dug – because they probe for food beneath its surface. You’ll find the largest populations of armadillos where the soil texture is sandy.

Although the armadillo can swim, it tires easily when forced to go a long distance. Yet, if the stream is narrow enough, you might just see this unusual little creature enter the water on one bank, walk underwater along the bottom, and come out on the other side. Interesting, huh?

They’re also able to ingest air, which makes them more buoyant for the times when they do swim. I bet you never think of armadillos in quite the same way again.

Well, that’s our show…thank you for joining us.

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

The last naturally breeding wild flock of endangered whooping cranes winters along the Texas Coast at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, near Rockport.

04—they spend from about mid-November to about mid-April here in Texas.

Lee Ann Linam is a biologist with the Wildlife Diversity Program at Parks and Wildlife. We spoke in mid November when the birds were just beginning to show up along the coast following their long migration from their breeding grounds in Canada.

10—We have about 25 or 26 whoopers that have been sighted on the Texas coast. We normally, though, don’t get our final count until late December or perhaps early January.

The flock was nearly extinct in the late 1930s 1940s with fewer than 20 members, but its population has grown slowly thanks to well-coordinated efforts to protect habitat and the birds.

20—We had a peak of 283 in Texas last winter, which was a new record. We had approximately37 to 40 chicks that were fledged and were ready to fly I n late august in Canada, according to aerial surveys. So, if we get good enough survival, then we might hit that magic 300 mark.

The Aransas National Wildlife Refuge has a website that updates whooper arrivals, but…

04—The very best experience is to go down and see whooping cranes for yourself.

That’s our show for today. The sport fish and Wildlife restoration program supports our series and fund conservation programs in Texas. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

As many as 1,400 whooping cranes migrated across North America to the Texas coast in the mid-1800s. By the mid 1940s, the population that wintered here was down to just 18 birds.

08—In the early days, it was primarily unregulated shooting that was causing loss of whooping cranes. And that was something that was fairly easy to control.

Lee Ann Linam is a biologist with the Wildlife Diversity Program at Parks and Wildlife. Because of well-coordinated efforts to protect habitat on the part of both agencies and private landowners, the birds have rebounded, but challenges remain.

11—But now the issues are pretty complex. Things like drought and climate change contributing to things like reduced freshwater inflows. Even the red tide occurrences are threatening the coast this year.

Healthy estuaries are critical to the survival of this magnificent species.

17—In the long-term, we as Texans have the challenge of figuring out how to keep those entire ecosystems healthy with sufficient freshwater inflows; balancing water needs and water uses, because everyone really is affected. So things like water use planning that are going on too, is an important part of the picture.

How many whooping cranes might we see in Texas this winter? Find out on tomorrow’s show.

The Sport Fish and Wildlife restoration program supports our series. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

08—(AMB: prairie dogs calling”)

The black-tailed prairie dog population has declined dramatically throughout its range in Texas.

09—They originally covered a large portion of the state. And we currently have somewhere around one percent of the population that was originally here in the state.

Marsha may coordinates Texas Nature Tracker programs for Texas Parks and Wildlife. You can help wildlife biologists understand this population decline by participating in the Texas black-tailed prairie dog watch. There are three ways to get involved.

19—Volunteers can get involved just monitoring a population of prairie dogs on public property. Then we have adopt-a-prairie dog colony, where folks can go out and monitor a colony wherever they find a permanent colony they’d like to research. And then the third was is the most intense, and that’s a density study.

You’ll need a monitoring packet, and can get yours online from the TPW web site, or have one mailed to you. It’s important to preserve all native species, even this chubby ground-dwelling rodent; because if prairie dogs were gone…

09—We would lose habitat for burrowing owls and food for many hawks. We would lose, also, the prairie habitat that they maintain.

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