TPW Commission
Public Hearing, August 21, 2024
Transcript
TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION
August 21, 2024
TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT
COMMISSION HEARING ROOM
4200 SMITH SCHOOL ROAD
AUSTIN, TEXAS 78744
ANNUAL PUBLIC HEARING
CHAIRMAN JEFFERY D. HILDEBRAND: Okay. Welcome back. We will now reconvene the Work Session on August 21, 2024, at 2:05 p.m. Before we begin, I will take role.
I, Chairman Hildebrand, am present. Vice Chair Bell?
VICE CHAIRMAN OLIVER J. BELL: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Abell?
COMMISSIONER JAMES E. ABELL: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Doggett?
COMMISSIONER WM. LESLIE DOGGETT: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Foster?
COMMISSIONER PAUL L. FOSTER: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Galo?
COMMISSIONER ANNA B. GALO: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Patton?
COMMISSIONER ROBERT L. “BOBBY” PATTON, JR.: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Rowling?
COMMISSIONER TRAVIS B. “BLAKE” ROWLING: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Scott?
COMMISSIONER DICK SCOTT: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great. Thank you.
We are now returning from the Executive Session, where we discussed the Work Session Real Estate Item Numbers 10 through 14, Centennial Parks Conservation Fund Projects Item Number 15, and Litigation Item Number 16.
If there are no further questions, I will place Item Numbers 10, 11 and 13 on Thursday’s Commission Meeting Agenda for public comment and action. Regarding Item Numbers 12 and 15, I will authorize staff to begin the public notice and input process. Regarding Item Numbers 14 and 16, no further action is needed at this time.
All right and with that, we are going to go into… you know what, we did not...
Dr. Yoskowitz, you needed to read into the record that we were back in session,
I believe. Isn’t that correct?
DR. DAVID YOSKOWITZ: Well, as we open up the annual public hearing, I’ll read the public notice, so…
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Okay. Alright. Well, this is our annual public hearing and before proceeding with any further business, I believe Dr. Yoskowitz has a statement for you.
DR. DAVID YOSKOWITZ: A public notice of this meeting containing all items on the proposed agenda has been filed in the Office of the Secretary of State as required by the Chapter 551 Government Code referred to as The Open Meetings Act.
I would like for this fact to be noted in the official record of this meeting.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, thank you, Dr. Yoskowitz.
All right, and now we can hear from those who are signed up.
We are excited to hear from you. You will each have two minutes to speak. Try to adhere to that. And I will be as gracious as I can on that. But two minutes would be very good. We’ve got 37 people signed up so you can do the quick math, that’s an hour and a half, plus or minus. Anyway, so if you guys can push the process along.
So, we are going to start out with ‑… Do we have a list, Dee?
Okay, there we go. Okay, here we go. I would ask as well, we will line you guys up five at a time. How’s that? That will be quick. So, it’s Senator Hall, Francie Lockwood, Justin Dreibelbis, Louie Sanchez and Cannon Jamison would kind of be ready to Rock ’n’ Roll. So, if you guys would kind of stand behind Senator Hall and just be ready to go. Alright, thank you, Senator.
SENATOR BOB HALL: You said two minutes? I’m already in trouble.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: It’s alright, go ahead. Alright, Senator. We will give you a bit of extra time. How’s that? Okay?
SENATOR BOB HALL: I’ll be as fast as I can.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Alright, okay. Thank you.
SENATOR BOB HALL: Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members. I am very encouraged by some of the commissioners’ statements earlier today. They are the first intelligent comments related to CWD that I have heard in any one of these hearings on CWD. You know fire and government have identical characteristics.
In the hands of the right personnel, both fire and government can warm, comfort, and protect you. However, in the hands of the wrong personnel, fire and government can also destroy life, liberty and property without the fear of recourse. I’m glad to hear some questioning on Item 7, because the economic analysis in that is false and misleading. It says there is no economic impact. When that property value drops, the taxes drop on it and that affects the county. It’s a very misleading statement in there and also the businesses around when other things go down with it. The zones are really bad for the economics of it.
So how did it get spread so quickly? Knowledgeable animal health experts believe that the Texas Parks and Wildlife’s extensive live deer herd testing a few years ago accelerated the spread of CWD. In a short period of time, veterinarians rapidly live‑tested deer across the state without properly sterilizing their tools. This deliberate act by the government is most likely what caused CWD inspections to spread, but nobody wants to admit to that.
What if we were to have another pandemic of humans, let’s call it CWX, and it was thought to make humans sick, but it didn’t kill ’em. We don’t really know much about who gets it and how it spreads. But when it hits, the personnel at Texas Parks had been moved to Health and Human Services and they were put in charge of doing something about CWX. Well, the first thing as a management action would be to select top management personnel with no meaningful experience or qualifications to lead the eradication effort, and it would make sure that no experts in CWX were even consulted. And if a child were to be diagnosed with a possible positive CWX, that child would be immediately quarantined and executed. And then the teams would go to the school and execute all of the children in the schools as well as personnel and then when they left there, they would go to their homes and execute the parents.
The real threat to deer, Texas Parks and Wildlife has killed many more deer than CWD has known to have killed. If anybody is worried about deer being killed, they need to do something about the government killing the deer. This is the only Texas state agency that refuses to actually seek input from knowledgeable experts and purposely rejects suggestions from field experts who know what they’re doing. Texas has one of the world’s most respected veterinarian schools in the world, Texas A&M, and why has Texas Parks and Wildlife refused to seek meaningful assistance from A&M? Why has Parks and Wildlife refused to listen when their experts suggest policies and procedures that can possibly put Texas Parks’ CWD program on a sane path?
I urge you to take the Chairman’s suggestions and seriously consider restructuring the program and getting people involved in it. I believe you need to have a totally separate agency overseeing the testing so people can have confidence that the results are actually honest.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great. Thank you, Senator Hall. Appreciate your comments.
SENATOR HALL: My last point is, you have managed to run half of the breeders out of business. And if you haven’t seen this chart, I would be glad to show it to you. Since you started the program of killing the deer as the only solution… only tool in your toolbox. This is what you have done to the economy of Texas, a multi-billion-dollar business run out because of mismanagement.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Senator Hall. Appreciate it. Ms. Lockwood.
MS. FRANCIE LOCKWOOD: Well, good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, and Commissioners. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to you today.
I’m Francie Lockwood from Kerrville, and I spoke here last year about my experiences as a south Texas Buckskin Brigades cadet, and I wanted to come back and tell you about my progress in the Texas Brigades organization, and how it’s affected my life in many positive ways. From the time I graduated from the 23rd Battalion of the Texas Buckskins Brigade over a year ago, I started on my goal to return as an assistant herd leader in the 24th Battalion. I wanted to do this because as a cadet I was inspired by the leadership and dedication of the assistant herd leaders, herd leaders, and staff. Texas Brigades has a very rigorous process to become an assistant herd leader. I completed a book of accomplishments over the span of seven months that not only helped me learn more about white‑tailed deer and management but also promote South Texas buckskins brigades.
I was very happy to be accepted as an assistant herd leader for the 24th Battalion and when June 9th arrived, that’s when the fun really began. South Texas Buckskin Brigades usually has one herd of all girls, and I was thrilled to be chosen to lead that group along with our adult leader, Laurie. We named ourselves the Day Fire Does, and we enthusiastically set off to try and win top herd. We gave it our all in everything from shooting sports to deer trivia to the amazing buckskin race. And it paid off when the Day Fire Does did indeed come out on top.
We are all looking forward to our hunt together this winter. I was so grateful when Brigades offered me a scholarship for my work, the first step on the road to attending Texas A&M and possibly studying wildlife and fisheries sciences just like my dad. My new goal now is to be chosen as a special agent for the 25th Battalion next year, which means anothe long application process and added challenges. But I know it will be worth it to participate in the best five days of my summer and continue to help South Texas Buckskin Brigades and its mission to develop future wildlife conservationists. I would like to thank Texas Parks and Wildlife for their continued support of Texas Brigades and I want you to know that it is an organization that inspires leadership, excellence, teamwork and confidence in the youth of Texas. I am very proud to be a part of it. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you very much, well done. Well done.
(APPLAUSE)
Justin, is yours as uplifting?
MR. JUSTIN DREIBELBIS: Hard to follow Ms. Lockwood there, but I will do my best.
I’m going to keep it positive here, too. I know you have some sticky subjects to talk about this afternoon. I want to thank this commission very much for your continued support of our hunting heritage programs that TWA and Parks and Wildlife have been partnering on since 1991, when we started Texas Big Game Awards, ’96 when we started Texas youth hunting program and then just here in 2021, when we created the adult learn to hunt program. This last season, TBGA recognized over a thousand hunters and landowners for their contributions to our hunting heritage, wildlife habitat and our state economy.
Our adult learn to hunt program, which is our newest program, took 125 adults on their first hunts on private lands and that program is rapidly expanding.
And then the Texas youth hunting program took over 1,200 kids on safe, educational hunts on private land this year. And we also hit our 30,000 mark for kids that have gone through a TYHP hunt. Couldn’t have happened without your strong support through the years, and we just thank you very much for it. With that, I’m going to hand it over to a couple of our hunters and volunteers. We have Louie Sanchez from Austin who is a hunter turned volunteer for our adult learn to hunt program, and we have Cannon Jamison, from Kyle, who is one of our TYHP hunters. So, I hope you enjoy what they have to say. Thanks again.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you.
MR. LOUIE SANCHEZ: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, how are you? My name is Louie Sanchez. I am here to thank you so much for your support of hunting heritage and the adult learn to hunt program. I want to share with you my story in this program. It started in 2019 in the earliest iterations of adult learn to hunt with Stewards of the Wild which is a program under the auspice of Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation. I was fortunate enough to be selected and harvested my first deer at the King Ranch, which is a pretty great place to do that. Not only was I fortunate enough to harvest one, I harvested two. As part of the program, I learned firearm safety. I learned the fundamentals of hunting, dressing in the field, and of course at the end of the experience we were able to enjoy a wild game dinner. And just like any hunter, I took my deer for processing and got a call several months later, it was March of 2020, when the processor called me to come collect my venison. I filled up multiple ice chests, and I was pretty happy going home. Then something unprecedented happened the following week— the country shutdown because of COVID‑19 pandemic. And if y’all remember, businesses were shut down, grocery stores were rationing, and the every‑day Texan was wondering, you know, are we going to have enough to feed our family? And for me and my family, we had enough. We were never uncertain because we had venison in the freezer.
In fact, we had enough to share with family and with friends and with neighbors. And that’s when it became salient for me that this wasn’t just a fun experience, it is a life experience. And so, that’s when I became a volunteer, I got hunt master certified and now I’ve taught this skill to others that has been taught to me. It’s been a blessing to do that, and I’ve made some great friends along the way. As part of this and why I share this story is when you look at where I was in 2019, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about hunting to today, I’m a director of the Texas Wildlife Association, advocating for conservation rights and for landowner rights. And so, when you see that journey, it talks about the power of the program and what it can do for individuals. So, I want to thank you so much for your support of hunting heritage.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, well done. Thank you.
Cannon Jamison. And after Cannon, we have Jonathan Letz, Matt Wagner, Mary Meuth… Mary Pearl Meuth, Shane Bonnot and David Aparicio. Okay, I think that’s it. Alright, Cannon.
MR. CANNON JAMISON: Good afternoon.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Good afternoon.
MR. CANNON JAMISON: I’m Cannon Jamison. I’m a 16-year-old junior in high school and I’m going to talk to you about the amazing experiences I’ve had with Texas youth hunting program. So, sorry. Through this program, I have learned many things such as the amazing leaders in the Texas youth hunting program. They taught me many things such as skinning deer. I’ve never… Let me start this over, sorry.
Without this, I would never have been able to hunt. I usually don’t hunt, I’m outdoors. I golf; I do all these other things, but I’ve never been into hunting. And then I got introduced to it and they taught me… ‑‑ like the amazing leaders in there, they taught me many things such as skinning deer. They taught me gun safety control and other things like that. Geez, I should have brought my paper up here…
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: It’s okay, it’s alright, just keep rolling.
MR. CANNON JAMISON: Let me think about this… sorry.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Hunting? Did you like the hunting experience?
MR. CANNON JAMISON: Sorry. Let’s start here. So, the memories I’ve made‑… let’s start here. The memories I made were unbelievable. I’ve been on three hunts now. The super hunt with over 60 kids. There was amazing food, I mean the experience, the views, waking up at 4:00, you know, I’m not a morning person, but the views are amazing. The people out there, there are strong leaders out there that have amazing wisdom and can teach you so much. It’s like such a loving place to be. I would have never been able to hunt like I said and now I love it, and I’ve been inviting friends to these hunts, and it’s been amazing. Sorry…
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: That’s alright. You think you’re going to be a lifetime hunter now?
MR. CANNON JAMISON: Oh, yeah.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Good. Excellent. And maybe because of this program you will be a lifetime hunter?
MR. CANNON JAMISON: Yes, sir. I wanted to thank the program for the opportunity it gave me, and I hope other people can get the same opportunity I got.
COMMISSIONER HILDEBRAND: Recruit ’em up! Good. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Hey, young man, just be careful now if you go hunting too much and eat too much, you will look like me.
(LAUGHTER)
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Jonathan?
MR. JONATHAN LETZ: Yes, it’s always hard to follow someone like Cannon, which is definitely the reason you are all sitting up there, the Texas youth hunting program.
Good afternoon, Chairman Hildebrand, Commissioners, Dr. Yoskowitz. For the record, I’m Jonathan Letz President of the Texas Wildlife Association. TWA is a private landowner and hunter rights organization formed in 1985. Thank you for the opportunity to provide some input this afternoon.
In recent commission meetings, I have heard many of you talk about business. How Texas is open for business, and the need to be business friendly. I could not agree more with you. All of you own businesses and have been very successful. I own businesses including a working cattle ranch and a hunting ranch. If you’re in the oil business, like some of you are, you follow the rules of the Texas Railroad Commission. If you’re in the hospitality industry, insurance, sales of any types, you must follow regulations. In fact, whatever business you operate you must follow the rules, regulations or licenses for that industry. Rules and regulations that often are made to protect the public and other businesses. One business should never be allowed to operate at the expense of another business. Of the 172 million acres that make up Texas, 142 million acres are farms, ranches and forests. These 142 million acres are owned by over 250,000 private landowners and private businesses. These businesses provide food, fiber, and wildlife conservation and protect our natural resources. They are critical for the success of this department and this state. I ask each of you to remember that all farms and ranches in Texas are businesses and hope that you will not favor one industry over another— and yes, I’m talking about the deer breeding industry and the artificial movement of deer around our state— at the expense of all the other farms and ranches in Texas. All of these other businesses. The deer breeding industry operates under license from this department and must be required to operate in a manner that protects the wildlife and our natural resources. One method is permanent visible ID, so that landowners that are not in the deer breeding industry are able to protect their property. I recently read …‑ almost done. I recently read a bio about Vice Chairman Bell, it was not a Parks and Wildlife bio, but I thought it was very interesting, andd I was impressed about your history and your background. But there was one sentence that really interested me, after it mentioned you were on this commission. It said that Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission is a national leader in national resources conservation and outdoor recreational programs. I hope that y’all remember that because that’s why y’all are here. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you. Alright. Matt Wagner.
MR. MATT WAGNER: Greetings, Chairman Hildebrand and Commission members. I’m Matt Wagner, Executive Director of the Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society. The Texas Chapter’s concern that the department is being pressured to diverge from their mission to manage and conserve natural resources for current and future generations, and instead is appeasing deer breeders through lawsuits, politics, celebrities, and of course, the almighty dollar. We noticed that a new position has been created, the wildlife landowner liaison position. This unique position, salaried at about $100,000 peryear, reports directly to the executive office and focuses on CWD. We wonder how that position will coordinate with the wildlife division that already has hundreds of biologists working with landowners every day. We hope the right person can be found for this job and encourage the department to include members of external conservation organizations to serve on the interview panel. The Texas Chapter, the Texas Wildlife Association, and numerous other conservation organizations including the Texas Deer Association supported the depopulation of the Hunt County breeding facility a few months ago. This highly publicized and unfortunate event took its toll on the facility owner’s family and department employees alike but was unavoidable since after two years of litigation the herd had a positive infection rate of 67%. Now the same thing is happening in multiple other breeding facilities, including Gillespie and Frio Counties. Please honor the mission of TPW and protect the thousands of landowners that depend on healthy wild deer for their part in a $9 billion hunting economy in this state. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you. Mary Meuth.
MS. MARY PEARL MEUTH: “Moit”, but you’re close. You’re getting closer every time we get up here. We’ll get there.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: They need to give me the pronunciation here.
MS. MARY PEARL MEUTH: I will write it out phonetically next time. Greetings, Chairman Hildebrand, Commissioners, Dr. Yoskowitz. My name is Mary Pearl Meuth. And I am the current president of Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society.
Our chapter with nearly 1,000 members, Matt Wagner as our executive director, has been a strong advocate for sound wildlife management and conservation in Texas since 1965. I want to begin my testimony today by expressing our deep appreciation for the work of the wildlife biologists and field staff at Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. These professionals, many of them are members, many of them my personal friends, are the backbone of our state’s wildlife management. Living and working alongside the landowners they serve and playing an essential role in maintaining the balance between conservation and land use. Speaking to the core issue today, I must address our continued serious concern of the threat posed by Chronic Wasting Disease. Since August 2022, as you heard earlier today, CWD has been detected in 21 captive deer breeding facilities, an alarming rate of nearly one new detection per month.
Currently, as Matt alluded to, 14 CWD positive facilities housing approximately 4,200 deer have neither signed a herd plan nor depopulated their facilities. CWD has and will continue to pose a significant risk to Texas’s other 5.8 million wild and native deer which are shared in their stewardship by all 250,000 landowners in Texas not just the few as Johnathan mentioned. And worth repeating again, as an industry in Texas, white‑tailed deer are worth $9.6 billion— I did a little Aggie math earlier, and to put that into rodeo terms, that’s 30 times the economic impact of the 2024 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Thank you all so much.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you. Shane Bonnot. Sorry.
MR. SHANE BONNOT: No problems. Good afternoon, Chairman and Commissioners and Dr. Yoskowitz. I’m Shane Bonnot. I’m representing Coastal Conservation Association, and I just wanted to continue with a theme of gratitude, as others have expressed today, and appreciation for this Commission, for their support for our coastal fisheries and an appreciation for the Department for all that they do to enhance our fisheries. I had the personal prilege and pleasure of attending the 1 billion fish celebration held in late July. And I know Chairman Hildebrand spoke of it earlier, it really was a wonderful, wonderful and worthy celebration. If folks knew what coastal fisheries staff and hatcheries staff have to go through to get a fingerling to that size, they truly would realize how significant this achievement was. You think it’s hot out there right now, you go to the bottom of a plastic lined pond to clean out decaying organic matter, and you would have a deeper understanding and appreciation for what it takes to get those fish to release them. I just wanted to say thank you so much and thank the Department, and their employees, and the staff for all that they do to enhance our fisheries. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thanks so much. Alright. David Aparicio.
MR. DAVID APARICIO: Good afternoon. My name is David Aparicio, and I’m the owner and operator of two oyster COM sites in Matagorda Bay and Tres Palacios Bay. We are located in Palacios, Texas.
I want to first thank you all for your time today. I’ve spent my whole life being groomed on the water starting in the Gulf shrimp industry and in 2022, ultimately choosing my career in oyster farming.
The reason for my visit today is I would like to propose a great farm and management practice moving forward. I’m asking the department to consider allowing Texas farmers to use out of state triploids to meet the seed demand in the appropriate time of year for planting oysters. This affects farmers when the seed availability can be scarce.
By limiting us to use only Texas fruit stocks, makes seed very limited and later after the whole Gulf Coast has planted its seeds; Texas is next in line and also last in line… Other states such as Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama can use each other’s brood stocks, as well as seed from our brood stock, however, Texas is not allowed to do so. These limitations affect our industry very much by missing appropriate planting windows and makes it further challenging to build a successful business. Triploids are very similar to a seedless watermelon. They do not reproduce enough to affect or consider being harmful to Texas waters. All oysters from Mobile Bay, Alabama, to northern/central bays of Texas share the same genetics. I know there are many things to consider, and oyster farming is so new to Texas.
I just want to find the best avenues to help make the Texas oyster mariculture program be more successful and sustainable moving forward for the years to come. Thank you all again for your time, and I appreciate everything that has been done thus far for this new and exciting industry to our great state. And I hope this option can be considered in the near future. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HILDEBRAND: Great, thank you very much. James Meyn? After that we’ve got Riley Price, Fritz Jaenike, Jody Phillips, John True and Grahame Jones. James.
MR. JAMES MEYN: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, Department leadership, and staff. My name is Jim Meyn. I am the CEO of Palacios Marine Agricultural Research, which I will shorten to PMAR. PMAR is a nonprofit marine research organization that is focused on restoring oysters and oyster reefs across the great bays of Texas. PMAR hopes to do for oyster stocks what the Department’s world class hatchery system has done to restore sports fish. Our oyster hatchery operations are very similar to the Department’s sports fish restocking programs where we follow many of the same hatcheries’ protocols and hope for the same great results. PMAR has recently completed its second oyster hatchery, and we are locatd in Palacios, Texas, which is on Matagorda Bay. We are now poised to produce over 2 billion oyster eyed larvae on an annual basis. To put that in perspective, 2 billion eyed oyster larvae as they go through metamorphosis can turn into 300 million oysters that we could be putting back in Texas waters every year.
Unfortunately, PMAR’s production right now is limited to only providing seed for the Mariculture industry, which is in its infancy and far below what our productive capacity is. In most states and other countries, oyster restoration efforts are anchored by hatchery operations, and the same could be true in Texas. PMAR urges the Commission to take advantage of this valuable restoration tool that can improve our oyster stocks and provide economic benefit to our coastal economies. Let’s work together to establish appropriate protocols for deploying our oyster in the water and restoring our bays. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, thank you. Jim, are you the only facility that does this type work in the Texas Gulf Coast?
MR. JAMES MEYN: We are the only production facility. There is a research facility in Flower Mound that is operated by Agri‑Life and then there is a pending facility in the ball of our peninsula that is attempting to develop a hatchery operation.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: For commercial purposes?
MR. JAMES MEYN: That is my understanding.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Okay. Great. But you’re saying that you can produce 300 million oysters per year?
JAMES MEYN: Yes, Commissioner.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Wow. Okay, alright. Great, thank you very much. Okay, Riley Price?
MS. RILEY ANN PRICE: Hello. My name is Riley Ann Price, and I think that a few of you already know that I’m the west Texas cotton farmer. This is not my first time here, and it’s always an honor to be here and have the opportunity to speak to you guys as an avid agriculturist and a wildlife enthusiast. This morning, I had the opportunity to sit in the workshop. I left home about 4:00 this morning to make sure that I could be here and that was a true learning experience. I wish that I had taken part in that previously. It was interesting to hear some of the comments made and it was interesting to have a feel for the room and understand where some of you are coming from.
It was alarming to me that it was pointed out this morning that 94% of the public comment on the CWD zones strongly disagreed, and yet, we are still here.
It was alarming to me after 94% of the public comment disagreed, we are still looking at placing six more zones with approximately 50-ish thousand acres. It’s alarming to me that no one can tell me exactly how many acres are in these zones, surveillance or containment? The word “approximate" is used fluently, there’s not an exact number of acres. My husband and I are cotton farmers in five counties. We’re spread out about 120 miles from end‑to‑end. Trust me, I would like to pay my taxes on approximate acres instead of actual ones. Yet when I sign my federal contracts, I have to know exactly how many acres I planted in cotton. I’m just curious, how many acres is it? The comment was made this morning that we weren’t sure that it affected land values. Trust me, it does! Not only does it affect our land value, it affects our livelihood as landowners. It is no secret it’s statistical that agriculturalists are asset rich and cash poor. That land is how we obtain our operating capital, and it absolutely is affecting our lanvalues.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great. Thank you, Riley, very much. Alright, Fritz Jaenike?
MR. FRITZ JAENIKE: It’s Fritz Jaenike, and I’m with the Texas Aquaculture Association and I appreciate being able to be here this afternoon. I wanted to express gratitude for the work that the Parks and Wildlife has done with the Commercial Oyster Mariculture Program, and we saw the workshop this morning and a lot of work is being done to proactively change things to the better.
Members of the Texas Aquaculture Association — Oyster Section were able to meet with Wildlife staff in July, and we came here primarily to express that the fees from Parks and Wildlife and other state organizations in Texas, GLO specifically, are much higher than other producing states.
Parks and Wildlife fees alone are four times higher than most of the other coastal aquaculture states, especially in the Gulf of Mexico. They are higher than Alabama, which is the next highest but about four times the total fees of other coastal states. These fees are putting Texas oyster farmers at a competitive disadvantage with other states… in the neighboring states.
We are proposing that the $450 per acre, per year, for the farms in Texas be considered a $450 flat fee per farm. The reason that we’re proposing that is we got the impression in our meetings that really it’s not a lot more time needed from Parks and Wildlife staff to inspect and do the paperwork for a larger farm than it is a smaller farm, and so a flat fee would probably be more appropriate and would really help out the oyster mariculture farmers. And it would be a good chance to do this while we are taking care of a lot of other commercial oyster mariculture items. Any questions, please let me know, and I really appreciate the opportunity to be here.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you very much. Jody Phillips?
MS. JODY PHILLIPS: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Sorry, I had a whole speech written and I just threw it out the window earlier. I’m going off the cuff today. I’m Jody Phillips, President of the Texas Deer Association, and I would like to start with my appreciation for you guys having an open mind regarding CWD. I think that the discussion this morning was promising, and I think that we are headed down a good path. I would like to just point out a couple of things. The deer breeders themselves are not against regulation, it’s needed in our industry, there is no doubt. I’ve said this several times, it keeps people from doing this that just don’t need to be doing it. But at the same time, you guys have created regulation that is working. So, we do all the testing. Recently, we have added the 100% movement. So, from breeder to breeder, we test 100% of mortalities. And what this looks like, as far as any aspect of it whether you’re talking about zones or just deer movement in general, means that each farm tests approximately—‑‑ and this is a low number— about 25% of their herd per year. So, it’s not just a snapshot of one deer. It’s a video clip of the entire farm, every year.
So, in order to move that deer not only do you have to already be movement qualified but you’re also going to test everything that you might even consider moving. You may not move it because you may not sell it, or you know depending on what’s going on within the industry. The reason I’m saying that is the rules and the approach that you guys already made is working. So, we’re getting all of these new positives because the testing is so intense. Where you test intensely, you’re going to find it.
So, I think that the regulatiothat’s in place is designed to work and it is and now all of the sudden we’re upset that it is working. Hey, we found more positives. Isn’t that what it was designed to do in the first place? I just wanted to point that out to you guys and anyway I appreciate your time. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, thank you, Jody. John True?
MR. JOHN TRUE: Thank you for the time, Chairman Hildebrand, Vice-Chairman Bell, members of the Commission. I appreciate the time.
I am John True. I was former President of TDA and a deer breeder in Hunt County. I appreciate the zone discussion this morning. As I mentioned, I’m a clean breeding operation in Hunt County but I’ve been in a containment zone and put out of business because of the antiquated regulations that were written in 2012. I’ve been respectful and reasonable, I’ve played the game with the department. I was told if I was serious about getting back in business, I could submit a petition for rule making. I did that. That was vetted by two different committees up here at the Department, it was accepted by the majority in the room, that was the first week of May. Nothing still has been presented to you all.
I’ve been told to be patient that changes may be coming. I’m frustrated, I need your help, and I wanted to explain to you ‑… we talked about best practices that happened at deer farms. I wanted to explain that to you and let you know that I’m still unable to conduct business. Our pens are double fenced. I own all of my own live testing tools, whether it’s rectal or tonsil, I own my own AI equipment when it comes to operating a breeding program. I own my own probes for semen collection on our bucks. I have implemented the Chris Seabury susceptibility model into our herd. I have euthanized every single animal that wasn’t born in our pens. I’m not epi-linked to any other breeder in the state.
I have no trace in and connectivity. I have taken a business approach to this and made some very difficult decisions in the spirit of surviving the regulations. Along with being in the suffocating containment zone we have been in the surveillance zone for the last three years. We test every animal for CWD that dies in our pens. We test every animal for CWD that leaves our pens going to our attached release sites and we test every animal for CWD that we harvest on the attached release site, 100% of everything. In three years, our surveillance zone has tested over 1,700 animals, the only positives have been on two trace facilities tied to the positive farm. Both of those are surrounded by a high fence. When is enough enough for the rest of us? I appreciate so much the discussion on the zones, and I pray that we will move away from this ridiculous model. Thanks.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you, John. Grahame Jones, and after Mr. Jones, we’ve got Kevin Davis, Jenny Sanders, Roy Leslie and Santiago Tza—Wan, and Clayton Utkov. Grahame.
MR. GRAHAME JONES: Chairman Hildebrand, Vice Chairman Bell, Commissioners, Dr. Yoskowitz, good afternoon, I’m Grahame Jones. I’m just an old, retired game warden and I should have brought my readers, but I simply just want to say thank you. You all have a tough job; we’ve seen that today, I’ve witnessed it over the last 30 years. But I just wanted to thank each of you for your service to the state of Texas to our natural resources and to the people of Texas.
Our population has doubled since the mid-1980s, from 15 million to 30 million and that’s why I think, and I think we all think, that conservation is more important today than it ever has ben before. More population results in more demand usage and pressure on our natural resources and our state parks systems more demand on our lakes, bays and rivers and WMAs, hence the importance of the work that you do along with the Department staff, landowners, nonprofits, hunters, anglers, campers, birders, and the list goes on. With all the growth and increased demands, Texas remains the envy of every state. I’ve seen it attending national conferences— our coastal fisheries, our inland fisheries, our WMAs, our relationships with landowners— we are the envy of the rest of the country.
And of course, a big part of this, and it’s been mentioned multiple times, that without the cooperation and partnerships from landowners, we wouldn’t be where we are today. I appreciate your allowing me to serve on the Coastal Resources Advisory Committee and also on the newly created Oyster Advisory Committee, I’m very excited about that.
I of course support the oyster-related proposals as stated. Lastly and most importantly, I wanted to thank the employees of the department who I will always…‑‑ you know I always view as family. It’s like coming home whenever I come up here and talk. And again, thank you for your dedication to the people of Texas and to our natural resources, thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you. Kevin Davis?
MR. KEVIN DAVIS: Good afternoon, Chairman, Vice Chair, Commissioners, Dr. Yoskowitz, I’m Kevin Davis with the Texas Deer Association. I just wanted to again thank y’all for the opportunity to speak for a couple minutes. Also, I want to thank you for your service to the people of the state of Texas and to the staff for their service to the people of the state of Texas.
I’ve supplied a letter of the position on… from the Texas Deer Association on our stance with the zoning proposals. I won’t belabor you with the points of that letter or the points that have already been made today, I just will tell you we have an opportunity here. The Texas Animal Health Commission staff has a proposal that’s about to go out for public comment and up for adoption soon that eliminates surveillance zones under their purview, and it’s a staff proposal. It’s not a proposal coming from the outside. Staff is saying that we’d like to move away from zones.
That presents an opportunity for us and presents an opportunity for you. There is also a hurdle if we decide to move forward with new zones that’s going to be tough immediately and that is that if you recall at your last commission meeting you adopted some changes and regulations. That was on May the 23rd. Some of those regulations did not actually make it to an effective date until August the 13th. They worked through a process, staff’s got to clean it up, it’s got to get to the Texas Register, it has to be there for 20 days before it takes effect. If it takes a similar length of time for that to that to happen, as it did during the last commission meeting, we will be in deer season when this rule takes effect.
So, the stress that’s related to new regulation, coupled with the stress that’s placed on a landowner when they are placed in the zone, stresses the relationship between the department and the landowner even further. I think we all know that landowners want to move away from the zone structure. I would just say it’s probably time for us to go ahead and stop adopting new zones and just change the regulation all together, new approach. Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER HILDEBRAND: Thank you. Jenny Sanders?
. JENNY SANDERS: Good afternoon, Chairman Hildebrand and Commissioners, appreciate Dr. Yoskowitz, y’all letting us be here today at this annual hearing. My name is Jenny Sanders. I’m a small acreage landowner and a hunter in Trinity County, the newest… one of the newest counties to join this fun club of CWD coming to our backyard thanks to captive deer breeding.
Since August of ’22, CWD has been detected in 21 captive deer breeding facilities. And again, that’s almost one new captive facility per month with the disease. Even worse, since 2015, 11,477 exposed deer have been released from CWD positive facilities on to 947 release sites across Texas. And with very little harvest testing going on, on those exposed sites, and with continued failure of this department to require permanent visible identification on released deer, we really have no idea how many of those release sites now harbor CWD.
I, along with many landowners and hunters that I know and interact with, are appreciative of the department’s and the commission’s concern for the impact of CWD on neighbors and hunters that didn’t do anything to get ourselves in this situation. However, everybody I know would much rather you prevent the spread of the disease than remove the protective and response measures to its detection. I have provided a copy of a report that others have mentioned from a Texas A&M study that was recently done. According to this research, deer hunting represents $9.6 billion in economic impact annually to Texas. And with less than 5% of hunters and landowners participating in the captive deer breeding industry, why would we continue to allow this cottage industry to put our rural economies at risk and our hunting heritage at risk? It’s those kids that came up here talking about the hunting heritage program that we’re putting at risk. If you’re not willing to stop the spread this disease via artificial movement of deer around the state, please at least give landowners who did not ask for this disease the tools to find and remove exposed animals by requiring permanent visible identification on all released deer. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great. Thank you. Roy Leslie?
MR. ROY LESLIE: Good afternoon. My name is Roy Leslie, representing only myself.
I’m a no‑fence, no-lease landowner in far northwest Kendall County, and I own a 140‑year-old ranch. In 2014, we received a Lone Star Land Steward award from Parks and Wildlife, and in 2023, the Land Stewardship Award from the Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society. I’m pushing 75, and for nearly all my adult life, Parks and Wildlife commissioners and staff have been valued partners in managing a healthy habitat. That partnership is threatened. I no longer consider this commission my partner. By promoting commercial feed lot businesses over those of us engaged in proper habitat management for all wildlife, you’re losing my support. By promoting unacceptable recommendations from politicians, podcasters, aging rockers and blatant self‑promoters, you’re losing my support. With your CWD priorities over the last year, you are losing my support. I’m not alone as surely you must realize.
I know you’re tired of dealing with Chronic Wasting Disease, we all are, but you knew when you took this honored position that Chronic Wasting Disease was an existential threat. The outcome is in your hands. Please look deeply and quietly within and ask yourself if you’re doing the right thing for our unaltered Texas wildlife. Please protect the interests of the vast majority of Texans, please publicly affirm and follow your long-revered mission statement. Please consider your personal Parks and Wildlife legacy as champions of native widlife or as promoters of a failing business. Please stop spreading Chronic Wasting Disease. If you can’t, then please step aside.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you, Roy. Santiago?
MR. SANTIAGO TZA-WAN: Greetings, Commissioners. I’m going to change lanes a little bit with regards to things that are not on the agenda. I appreciate y’all’s service here. I’m here today to speak towards the protections guaranteed by Section 6F of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act as they apply to the City of Austin park land known as Festival Beach, Edward Rendon Sr. Park.
Any temporary non-conforming use that exceeds six months in duration is required to identify and publish an NPS approved conversion site pursuant of the legal obligations stated in the 1965 Land and Water Conservation Act with the intent to preserve irreplaceable recreationally valuable public park land known as Section 6F properties. [Inaudible] in response to my email with regard to the expansion of the proposed I-35 through Austin and replacement of the bridge over Colorado River as documented in the Department of Interior in consultation March 7, 2023, we requested the analysis should include alternatives considered for proposed 6F property replacement mitigation site— that’s the important part— and an analysis of impacts as recommended by the lead agency, TxDOT. Our current understanding is that coordination between agencies, including Texas Parks and Wildlife and the City of Austin, is ongoing. Any and all finalization will be the responsibility of TxDOT as the lead agency.
In August of last year, TxDOT produced their BIS and their final record of decision without offering a property to exchange for this conversion site. I’m more interested in the temporary nonconforming use of Edward Rendon Park, which the historic land commission of City of Austin, has recognized a marker placed in 1964 protecting a heritage pecan grove, and I would like to understand what powers this board has… what this dais has to ensure that we value park lands.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great. Thank you very much. Clayton Utkov, and after that we’ve got Rick Young, Maree Williams, Bobby Schmidt, William Robinson, Rodney Parrish, Will Harte. Mr. Utkov?
MR. CLAYTON UTKOV: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Clayton Utkov.
I am not a deer breeder, but I am here as an attorney representing Rick Young and have been representing Rick Young in his dispute with Texas Parks and Wildlife and Texas Animal Health virtually since the beginning. I was at the first meeting in which Texas Parks and Wildlife called Mr. Young after a positive test. Although Mr. Young is going to speak to you about some of the details of his personal situation, I have been asked to address a couple of comments. One, I would like to talk to you briefly about the evidence that Texas Parks & Wildlife has been providing related to a positive CWD test. And second, I’d like to talk to you about our experience with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s proposed herd plans.
As an attorney, I am used to parties making allegations against each other. Parties frequently have differing sides. Oftentimes, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. As business owners, executives, as trustees in at...‑‑ and at least one attorney, I’m sure that you all understand it’s not hard to make an allegation against somebody but it is hard to prove that allegation. In fact, having a judicial process that requires evidence and proof is a hallmark of the American judicial system. The burden of proof I suspect you understand, it falls on the party maki the allegation. In this situation in regards to CWD testing, Texas Parks & Wildlife does away with all requirements related to testing. It’s the judge, it’s the jury, it’s the executioner. You may understand that the first opportunity, well first… Texas Parks and Wildlife tests all deer that die in a pen regardless of the cause. They receive the test results, if it’s a positive they provide it to the deer breeder. There is no opportunity for the breeder to confirm the test, to get a second opinion of the test, to conduct an independent test. It simply has to take Texas Parks & Wildlife at its word that there is a positive test.
The choices are then one of two things, immediate or somewhat immediate destruction of the entire herd of deer owned by the breeder. The result being the loss of a small Texas business.
It’s all based on this one test… one positive test at that point. You are going to hear testimony from others today that those test results are not always accurate. You’re going to hear testimony from others that have had false positives, inconsistent results, you’re going to hear testimony where the results come back that the gender of the deer is not even correctly identified. So, it’s at least entirely possible that the positive test that the breeder is being presented with is not in fact positive, and it doesn’t matter. At that point, the entire herd can be wiped out and there are multiple examples of breeders losing all of their deer with no resulting positive test.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Understand. Closing argument? 15 seconds.
MR. CLAYTON UTKOV: Just briefly on the herd plans. They do not in fact… They are presented as an alternative. There is no alternative, at least in the case of Mr. Young’s ranch. The deer herd plan came back with… the net result was the same thing, all of his deer were wiped out. He just agreed to spend an unknown amount of money over the course of five years. Thank you for your time.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Okay. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Young.
MR. RICK YOUNG: Thank you, Commissioners, you’ve probably heard a lot of bad stuff. This is Rick Young. I’m the… and there’s my friend, Oliver. I’m the Gillespie County CWD positive, but my guess is you haven’t heard any of my proactive statements. I’ve got deer in two pens… uh, two facilities right now. One facility has one pen that has deer in it; two tests in that pen, no positives. I’ve got another facility a mile and a half away, five pens all have deer, there has been three positives, maybe four.
I don’t actually get the reports sent to me; I have to try to get them through my vet. But, there may be four in that one pen… but that pen is separated by more than 100 feet which USDA rules said more than 10 feet is not commingled. It’s got an electric fence around it. I’ve heard double fencing is a best practice. I’ve done that. So, I would like to make it known that we killed all the native deer on our pastures— 1,500 acres— before we ever let any deer go. All the deer in my pasture are either directly out of my pen or direct descendants. We’ve tested 59 in the past few years in the pasture, all negative. Parks and Wildlife has tested 2,100 deer, in the surveillance zones, all negative.
So, the idea that my deer pose a real threat to my pasture deer or the deer in the surrounding ranches, I can’t buy that, because we’ve tested too many of them. And we have also tested over 150 that are ante- or postmortem deer in our pens with negative rults.
I am being as proactive as I can, and if I thought for a second that my deer posed a threat to my pasture deer or the neighbors, I would kill ’em all.
But I have pretty well proven that with 59, that’s about 25% of the herd, in my pasture that’s been tested, and they have all been negative.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great. Mr. Young, thank you. Thank you so much for your comments. Any closing?
MR. RICK YOUNG: Yeah, I really think that you guys are as… ‑‑ Commissioners have a hard time making any decisions on my particular case because we’ve got Hunter Reed that’s lied in his affidavit, and he said we’ve been offered multiple herd plans. No, we have been offered one, and we refused to come and negotiate, that’s lying. We never refused to come and negotiate. So, if you’re not getting the truth, how can you really weigh in?
COMMISSIONER HILDEBRAND. Understand. Thank you very much.
MR. RICK YOUNG: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Maree Williams.
MS. MAREE LOU WILLIAMS: My name is Maree Lou Williams. I’m here today because on May 28th, 68 Texas Parks & Wildlife personnel depopulated 249 deer at the worst outbreak in the state of Texas. I would like those here to know how Texas Parks & Wildlife conducts their business when Texans are watching and when they don’t think anyone is watching. Here they are in hazmat suits with tarps laid out on the ground at a staged visitation of their sample sight at RW Trophy Ranch. Here they are the next day in shorts, flip flops, and gloves sometimes accompanied by the vet, Hunter Reed, pouring out solutions off of samples collected at RW Trophy Ranch on bare ground without a tarp, without an eight‑foot fence— actually there is no fence there— and I have seen wild deer near this location. This is Texas Parks & Wildlife saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Their actions affect the livelihood, finances, property values and private property rights of the citizens of the state of Texas. Upon receiving the final reports from TVMDL for the 249 deer, I noticed that 14 of the deer on the submission their unique numbers were inaccurate. Of those 14 deer, eight of those were unique numbers that were not assigned to ‑‑that were assigned to different deer breeders and those deer never were at the RW Trophy ranch. Three of those were unused or unassigned and the other were deer that were already had been deceased at RW Trophy Ranch, going back as far as 2013. The important aspect is there is a final report that states a certain unique number is suspect per TVMDL and confirmed as a positive at NVSL that is not a deer that was at RW Trophy Ranch when it was depopulated. This neglect… this negligence and ineptitude by Texas Parks & Wildlife, TVMDL, and NVSL is unacceptable when there is no checks and balances on a test and a decision that carries such enormous consequences. Does TVMDL make mistakes? Yes, they do. We sent three samples in on April of 2024 to be tested. They were shipped in the same box, but they were in individual baggies.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Ms. Williams, wrap up, if you would, wrap up in 15 to 30 seconds, thanks.
MS. MAREE LOU WILLIAMS: Um, I had a conversation with Dr. Gomaz. He told me that there were two that were detect, and the one was not because he had let me know there was a mix‑up in the tissue they had there because one doe was put in a different one.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Okay.
MS. MAREE LOU WILLIAMS: I got the test results back. The two deer he said were detect on the final report, one of them was detect and one of them was not detect. So, I need the Commission to know that they are basing people’s livelihoods, their finances on tests that there are mix‑ups… and I have it ‑‑ if you wish I can give you the recording of that, and I can show you the report that also states that these are the two deer that are detect and those were not the two deer that they said were detect. I don’t even know which ones could be. So, in conclusion, the inability to have an open and honest conversation with individuals and/or agencies that do not want to be open and transparent causes lots of doubt and mistrust, which for me has changed my perception of the entities that are now in control of the deer breeding community.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you very much. Alright, Bobby Schmidt?
MR. BOBBY SCHMIDT: Thank you, Commissioners, Parks and Wildlife. I don’t know how y’all sit up here and listen to all this BS all day long but you do a hell of a good job of it. I tell ya. It’s so many different opinions in here.
I’m a deer breeder. We got shutdown. My son’s a deer breeder, and we’re a deer breeder also. Two different locations, and we got shut down last year one day on a tier deal— which I thank y’all for finally doing away with a tier deal — shutdown Parks and Wildlife and opened Animal Health Commission, two state agencies, who didn’t know what the hell to do, and we didn’t know we were shutdown, but opened with Animal Health Commission but thank you for doing that and getting that done anyway. The testing ‑‑talking about the testing and all. We do test 100%, we do everything we’re told to do. The rules change constantly. We never know what the hell to do tomorrow. Why don’t you do… look at another way of testing? You going to test the pens… I’m old school. I think it’s scrapies, and CWD is the same thing. My granddaughter did a thesis on it, nobody wants to listen to it, but it’s all the facts are there. There’s no doubt about it. But nobody… even the USDA says they can’t tell the difference in it… but nobody look at it that way.
Why don’t we… Just testing deer breeders, you’re going to find the deer and they want to kill 300 deer if you’ve got one. You know, why not on the MLDP permits out here in the wild everybody all these ranches test 3% or 10 deer off each one of them or something and do that and find out the truth? Hollywood Park? What do you call it up here? Kerr Wildlife Management Area? We still — we never going to get the truth about it. There’s no doubt about it. We’re still trying to. We never will.
There is so much of it out there. But if you do MLDP permits, do a certain percentage of ‘em, and it will change a lot of people’s outlook because I promise you, we’ll find it out there… Because it is there, it’s not going to go away. It’s going to be there.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great. Thank you, Mr. Schmidt, appreciate it. William Robinson.
MR. WILLIAM ROBINSON: Mr. Commissioner, I appreciate being able to talk to you guys today. I own Little Paint Creek Ranch in Kimbell County. We have a deer breeding facility that got shut town a couple of years ago. I’m kind of a reactive type person.
Instead of waiting on Texas Animal Health to have my deer tested, I knocked them all down and had RT-QuIC test on every one of them. We had one deer that came up sitive when we got shut down. Like I said, I RT-QuIC‑tested every deer in those pens, 150 of them. After we got the test results back, where the first deer came up positive in pen ten, I killed every deer in that pen. In pen 9, I killed every deer in that pen, then I had them take three deer just randomly out of each of the other eight pens. We sent those off to A&M. They come back within a couple of days, and we get a phone call we got ten positive deer. I need somebody to tell me how that happens when they came up negative on the first testing. They tested tissue, fecal and saliva. We also took DNA samples off of every deer in that pen. We had 20% that they said came up positive. I don’t buy it. It doesn’t happen that quick. Four of them were fawns, two of the fawns’ mothers were negative according to Texas Parks and Wildlife. RT-QuIC said we might have had one positive deer in one of the other pens, we killed that deer, sent it in, it was negative according to the state. The other question I got, they told me wait two years before we start testing. I killed 71… 72 animals on my ranch last year. Texas Animal Health don’t want to look at those 72 deer as part of the 248 to take off. I just need some answers, guys. They’ve got 16,000 acres of my property tied up.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Understand. Thank you very much.
MR. WILLIAM ROBINSON: Okay, thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Alright. Let’s see, we’ve got… is this Rodney? Are you Rodney? Rodney Parrish, sorry.
MR. RODNEY PARRISH: You don’t know me by now?
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Hello, Mr. Parrish. It’s good to see you. It’s good to see you again.
MR. RODNEY PARRISH: Good to see y’all. You know this whole deal is a Pandora’s Box created by the first two deer that got on the ark. One of ’em had it. Prove me different. And now, we’re being accused, us deer breeders, of creating a monster. Ms. Sanders, I’m sorry, we did not, Mother Nature did. We have an answer to it. We love deer as much as anybody, maybe more. Now back to the deal.
I was ‑‑an eyewitness to the depopulation of Mr. Robert Williams’ deer. The most unethical, inhumane Gestapo ways that—‑‑ and I’m ashamed to say it, Parks and Wildlife did it. There’s good people in the Parks & Wildlife, but they have to do a dirty job. And for those good people that do a dirty job, I commend ’em. But there’s some dirty people that do a dirty job in y’all’s business. They went up there and they killed 249 deer. Part of ’em were guilty, part of ’em were innocent. We need to straighten this out with some common sense, sit down at the table with each other— and I’m willing to sit with any y’all, y’all probably don’t want to sit with me, but I don’t care. Y’all know it. This disease isn’t going to kill every deer in the United States, every deer in the country, or it would have already done it. Yeah, we don’t know how it spreads, we don’t know where it comes from. My red light is on. But let’s get this stupid…
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Yes, sir, thank you.
MR. RODNEY PARRISH: …All over with.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you, Mr. Parrish. Thank you for your comments.
Mr. Harte?
MR. WILL HARTE: Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, thank you for… and Dr. Yoskowitz, thank you for this opportunity to speakI wish I had gotten here a little earlier, I would have had an opportunity to read the facts… that now everyone has read ten times first. I have been listening to this and I guess my short end is this — deer farms produce freak deer and Chronic Wasting Disease. I won’t give you the current status, you’ve heard all that. But what keeps welling up in me is, why are we talking about this? We have taken the wild out of wildlife. All this talent and all this brain power, all the capital, and so forth, what are we doing? What’s next?
VICE CHAIRMAN BELL: Sir, could you pull the microphone a little bit closer to you? You’re soft spoken.
MR. WILL HARTE: How’s that?
VICE CHAIRMAN BELL: Thank you, sir.
MR. WILL HARTE: Anyway, I don’t have much to offer after what I have listened to, but we can do better than this. We don’t need to veer off into private practice of wildlife. We need to stick with what we’ve got. We’re the best in the nation. I don’t know what else to say except I will be coming back often. I learned a whole lot today. It’s a great group of people and… ‑‑
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you for your comments very much. Mrs. Harte?
MRS. PAMELA HARTE: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I am Pam Harte, a hill country and west Texas landowner, a founding member of Texas for Mountain Lions and a recent member of Texas Parks and Wildlife Mountain Lion Working Group. In summary, in 2021, Texas for Mountain Lions met with Texas Parks & Wildlife staff and then in 2022, filed a petition to start a conversation about the abundance and management of mountain lions. In 2022, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission established a mountain lion working group which met five times, and I want to thank you for that. It was a wonderful experience, and thank you for my plaque, it’s beautiful.
Texas Parks & Wildlife staff submitted a thorough and intelligent report to the 2023 Commission. Then in spring 2024, Texas Parks and Wildlife staff delivered several presentations to you guys, to the Commission and finally in May 2024, just recently, with lots of public support the Commission unanimously passed regulations to stop the canned hunting of mountain lions and prohibit the holding of live lions in a trap for more than 36 hours. And I want to thank you very much for your attention to this. Ultimately Texas for Mountain Lions would now like to see Texas Parks and Wildlife Department create and implement a mountain lion management plan that has management units, is defensible, and economical. Hopefully, the plan would utilize mandatory harvest reporting which is fundamental to ethical hunting culture and the cheapest and most efficient method to get regional mountain lion abundance. Thank you for your service. I appreciate it.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you very much. Alright, let’s see. Next five. Sara Knux, Alice Oehmig. Michelle McBryde, Justin Wilson and Todd Merendino.
MS. DEE HALLIBURTON: Sara Knux has withdrawn.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Okay. Alice Oehmig? Hello, Ms. Oehmig.
MRS. ALICE OEHMIG: Hello, Chairman, Commissioners. Well, here again. Once again, it’s been a year since my husband stood before the Commission pleading for a pathway because in our situation we didn’t know what to do so he came to plea, “Show me a path, show me what I need to do, tell me what I need to do.” You know, Dr. Yoskowitz’s leadership. You know go to the staff. Show us. Call on the phone.You got a positive. Alan Cain quickly called and let us know. Made recommendations. We followed immediately. I have letters and e‑mails. What you did is commendable. What you did no one else has ever done. “You took immediate action,” which we did. Gladly, because we believe that there is disease management that needs to be in place.
This is business. If you’re going to be in business, you’ve got to have rules; you’ve got to follow the rules. If you don’t know, you’ve got to be conservative because otherwise it’s a Russian roulette game, and we didn’t want to play that with our deer or anybody else’s deer. Our fences, we have all the high fences in place; we follow the rules because we don’t want deer on the outside to infect our deer.
Next thing I know, I get these messages that they are holding a thing at the local Catholic church. Zoning, this is the harm that zoning did, putting up posters about zombie deer. Now granted they weren’t from Parks and Wildlife, but Parks and Wildlife never, ever came to our aid to this. And a child was hurt over this. Because their father…
In fact, he’s being homeschool because their father was… I mean that he was threatened because your father is going to put my father’s business out because they’re guides. They didn’t want to wear Blue Creek shirts. This is not thinking before you enact a mass marketing campaign, and how it’s going to affect people.
I have numbers. I’ve tested over 3,000 deer since we were required to test. 3,000.
I have postmortem tests, guaranteed, and after meeting with John Silovsky. He looked. It’s an impossibility that my second alleged positive was truly a positive because the codon values and everything else and how old that deer was and all the deer in his immediate contact were postmortem tested, zero detection.
There is something fishy, and it’s not Billy the billionth red drum is not the fish that I’m talking about. There’s something wrong here. I don’t know what ruffle I, you know, feathered ‑‑we have to admit that anything that somebody conducts test or anything, there has to have flaws in it. There has to be. If you can go to jail on something, you have to be released on that same principle. Whatever’s putting you in jail. You have to trust the testing. The testing has to be a firm barrier. You have to say okay, you’ve tested, that deer goes somewhere else. It is not that breeders’ responsibility what life that deer will lead. I just really want some people to please ask your staff to get with some people that will sensibly and come up with some solutions. I’ve gone over my time. I hope I don’t have to see you next year except to applaud another billionth-oneth bass to be released.
I mean, like I’ll say, I was in the Master Naturalists Program, I loved your program, that’s what I want to be talking about. I would love y’all to acquire more land and having more opportunities, but I want to be an advocate for you and not an adversary.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Understood. Thank you. Ms. Oehmig. Ms. McBryde.
MS. MICHELLE MCBRYDE: Hello, Commissioners. Nice to meet you all in person. I am Michelle McBryde of Kerr County. And I thank you for the allotted time to share my thoughts concerning the Commission’s regulatory powers and duties. By amending 65.84, the power of implementing zone designations, modifications and much more is given to the executive director. The transfer of these powers given by Commission creates avoidable trust obstacles with the people of Texas. Therefore, unnecsary burdens to law enforcement. I disagree with powers given and believe these powers should be revoked. Based on simple reasoning, detection defines date found in an area, not the date of origination. Which brings me to note by staff in the new zone designations proposal referencing antemortem testing, not being used as a definitive test for individual animals. Will it be used again in determining herd euthanasias or will it be postmortem testing as a determining factor? Better understood as captive depopulation efforts and culling of free ranging herds. Due to fear of spread, though science and history proves ineffectiveness of these management techniques in controlling Chronic Wasting Disease. I look forward to sharing more with you tomorrow in hopes that we reach an agreement and a stand to work together. Thank you, Commissioners.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you, Ms. McBryde. Justin Wilson?
MR. JUSTIN WILSON: Good afternoon, Commissioners, appreciate the time to speak with you this afternoon. My name is Justin Wilson. I’m a Frio County and Uvalde County landowner and currently manage a cattle and wildlife ranch in Zavala County.
I have been an avid hunter for almost 40 years and have been a deer breeder for the past 22. I love deer and I love raising deer. Ask anybody that knows me, and they will tell you that I’m extremely passionate about deer. It used to be an extremely rewarding experience, and now it’s fraught with worry and concern of impending annihilation. Because of the threat of CWD, white-tailed deer breeders and hunting ranchers are at risk of being put out of business and having their herds destroyed.
Not because of the disease itself, but because of the punitive cost that comes with a CWD positive detection. The regulations need to change. We know CWD is not a threat to humans. We know that CWD is not a threat to wild cervid populations. The threat is a regulatory response to a positive CWD detection. A positive breeding facility has a very slim chance to survive once they have the first positive detection. The first response from this department is suggesting a whole herd de-population. Second, Option 2, lock down for five years, partial herd extermination and several years of testing. So, unless you have really deep pockets that option is not a viable avenue for success. Some plans allow for the liberation of deer with even more testing. Sounds good at first until you read the fine print. Once an animal is liberated, live test essentially carries no value. The animal must be tested after harvested, and this test approved by this department that proves an animal is clean and safe to release now traps a breeder into punitive herd plans if it ties back to a positive facility. So, we have the solution in our pens. I’ve tested over 500 animals and have had one positive. That’s a 99.8% clean rate. I’ve done over 500 GBV values on my deer and 50% of my herd is resistant to the CWD. We have the answer. Give us an avenue to help you out.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, thank you, Justin. Appreciate it. Todd Merendino.
Let’s talk about ducks.
MR. TODD MERENDINO: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Let’s shift gears a little bit.
Appreciate the opportunity, Commissioner and Chairman and staff and Dr. Yoskowitz, to speak today. My name is Todd Merendino. I am the Director of Conservation Programs for Ducks Unlimited here in Texas. I will be co‑presenting with Kirby Brown.
MR. KIRBY BROWN: If that’s okay with you, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Alright.
MR. KIRBY BROWN: Chairman Hildebrand, members, David, thank you for having us here today, and thank you all for your service, including the staff members. You introduced yourself, I am Kirby Brown, Conservation Outreach for Ducks Unlimited here in Austin. And Ducks Unlimited is the largest wetland organization in the world with more than 1 million members and supporters in North America, including almost 60,000 members in Texas. And since 1937, DU has restored and conserved over 15 million acres of wetlands. And with our partners. It’s always in partnership. And last year, for the first time, Ducks Unlimited conserved over 1 million acres in a single year. Incredible amount of wetlands work, and we’re proud of it. Todd?
MR. TODD MERENDINO: Thanks, Kirby. And in Texas, that partnership last year in our FY24 resulted in over $3.6 million of wetland conservation projects in partnership with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. In our current fiscal year starting in July, that conservation teamwork partnership will result in over $6 million of wetland conservation.
This funding is derived from Ducks Unlimited donor funding, leveraging that with state and federal grant programs, working through the Department, using Pittman- Robertson funds and also state migratory stamp funds. That work is done on many of the management areas across the state. We also work quite extensively with private landowners in the Texas panhandle and the Texas coast and conservation — in concert, with Wildlife Division staff and also with Coastal Fisheries staff on the Texas coast on beneficial dredge projects and shoreline break waters.
MR. KIRBY BROWN: And we couldn’t have accomplished all this, the one million acres this last year, without this commission, your excellent staff, Texas waterfowl hunters, and other partner groups around the nation. And critically, wetland habitat conservation not only has to take place here in Texas but internationally on breeding grounds in Canada where most of our water fowl are produced and that we shoot, as well as in Mexico. And we want to thank you for recognizing that this is a shared resource across the country. And on behalf of all of us, thank you very much for your work.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Scott?
COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Good to see you again.
MR. KIRBY BROWN: Good to see you, sir.
COMMISSIONER SCOTT: I don’t think anybody questions y’all’s dedication to wildlife — bird conservation. Y’all do an outstanding job. I was down in Beaumont when we celebrated all that with y’all, and it’s something to witness. And if you have not been to a DU banquet, go to one. They’re a lot fun and second, this year we raised almost $10 million in DU fundraising. And all of that’s going to be matched multiple times. So, we’re looking forward to putting more work on the ground.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: And personal experience. We did a project… I did a project with your team this year, your staff was incredibly professional, a little slow but, we got it done and built some fabulous duck ponds that I think will be real attractive to water fowl. And you guys were really great to work with. So, thank you very much.
MR. KIRBY BROWN: Thank you, sir. We have a small staff, but we are effective.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Good. Thank you very much. Alright, Brin Dart? And then we’ve got a few more, Charles Eckel, Monica Morrison, Danny Cruse and last is Cory Russell. Mr. Dart?
MR. BRIAN DART: Good afternoon, Chairman, Vice Chair, Commissioners, Dr. Yoskowitz. I would like to inform you today of some research we as a private entity are doing and what we need from you to help us move forward in understanding managing Chronic Wasting Disease. Due to lack of direction and communication, we have taken it upon ourselves to develop and employ a proactive screening process for early detections of CWD in our facility using the latest science and technology. We are the ones doing the research and looking for new ways to manage this disease. Our goal is early removal of infected animals while at the same time determining which animals are not infected. So far, this approach has been quite successful with one animal being removed proactively, and a substantial number of others showing no presence of prions. This approach is putting out the sparks before there is fire. People need to realize that prions are everywhere, water, soil, plants, dust, everywhere.
There are papers and research to back all this, we have data that shows this as well and we have also been able to see those prion loads move through animals from front to back, and those animals test ‘not detected’ with required IHC testing later on after dying. Regulatory consequences need to be removed for active research to continue. Not only in our facility but in others. There needs to be a mechanism that can allow places doing research to continue moving forward without having to kill animals without bias due to regulations put in place during the last commission session. As a result of our research, we have also found strong correlation between testing protocols and positive facilities.
In fact, the model that we have put together through our research is now being offered to other positive facilities despite any discussion with us about the science or data behind it.
The department’s best practices as they stand are kill/test, kill/test, kill over and over. As a reactionary response, this was deemed acceptable with the discovery of the first positive in a facility. Here we are ten years later, and that old, outdated response is still being used. Science and technology has grown leaps and bounds since then, and it’s time the department catches up. Best practices cannot be improved when the same protocol is being used over and over and not being improved upon. The science and research world is continually moving forward at a rapid rate.
The department has knowledge of all the positive animals in the state, as results are determined, and then suspected and confirmed. There needs to be much more cooperation with researchers that will allow them access to these animals for sampling and data collection both before and after these animals are euthanized. We’ve seen in the past these researchers have been denied access to these animals and this data. If the Department truly wants to learn about this disease and find ways to manage it, this cooperation is imperative. There’s been a huge amount of data wasted due to lack of communication and transparency. I would love to continue this conversation further with any and all of you, and I’m happy to discuss the testing we are currently doing along with some of our findings.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you, Mr. Dart, very much. Charles Eckel.
MR. CHARLES ECKEL: Good afternoon. My name is Charles Eckel with Lyssy and Eckel. We are excited to be here, and we look forward to eagerly telling y’all about the progression that we find in the research of nutrition and CWD. In 2021, Lyssy and Eckel startedoing research with MNPRO and Preaiagen to try and figure out how prions can be stabilized in the presence of copper and zinc. In 2023, MNPRO took that research that we funded to Colorado and presented at the CWD symposium for all the researchers to see. And what we learned is quote, "Copper and zinc amino acid complexes exhibited inhibitory effects on CWD prion amyloid formation in RT-QuIC.” That’s huge. Quote, “Amino acid complexes were more effective than metal salts inhibiting CWD amyloid formations.” Amyloid formation is the measurement of how far that disease is going. The more plaque that has formed, the further along that we go. That impact is massive into the human side as well.
There is one source of copper and zinc that matters in this conversation. You can be told that copper does not work, that comment is said often. There is one source, and that is an amino acid complex. That’s the source that we utilized in this research and that is the only source that makes an impact. They will be misleading you if they tell you something differently. Lyssy and Eckel has sampled well over 4,000 samples from across the state, literally every brow sample and every forage that we can come across, there is very little copper but a lot of antagonists such as iron, sulfur and molybdenum across the state, including with the research we did with borderlands, the Hueco tanks where CWD was first found. There is zero copper and zinc and high levels of iron and molybdenum to block whatever copper could be coming. The CWD in the Hueco Tanks were not surprising. I’ll cut this short. Completed research tells us that if we want to stop the spread of CWD, it starts with finding what the nutritional deficiencies are and addressing those first, and the rest will come with it. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HILDEBRAND: Great, thank you, Charles. Monica Morrison?
MS. MONICA MORRISON: Good afternoon, Commissioners, Mr. Chairman, and Dr. Yoskowitz and staff. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today on behalf of mandatory harvest reporting of mountain lions. I appreciate your recent past efforts in passing regulations on behalf of our cat. And I’m keeping this very short, just so you know. In expressing support for mandatory harvest reporting, I recall comments that two of my Texans for Mountain Lions colleagues made who spoke here at the May commission meeting. Patricia Harveson, a carnivore ecologist, said mandatory harvest reporting would provide a more complete picture of mountain lion mortality. Mark Elbroch, who is Panthera’s Puma program director, said mandatory harvest reporting is fundamental to ethical hunting culture. It is the cheapest and most efficient method to get regional mountain lion abundance. The benefits of mandatory harvest reporting of mountain lions and the consequences of implementing this reporting method are well known and documented. Mandatory harvest reporting is the linchpin of a good management program. I urge the agency to recommend that the Commission implement this crucial reporting method. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you, Ms. Morrison. Donny Cruse.
MR. DONNY CRUSE: Thank you, Chairman Hildebrand and Commission. I’m a fishing guide from Rockport, Texas. Been a fishing guide for 22 years, and I just want to present y’all with a problem that I see that’s going to start happening, and that is the number of guides on the Texas Gulf Coast. As y’all know, we should be the stewardships of the resource. I applaud y’all for all your conservative measures and restocking. Y’all have done a great job, but the demand on our resource is increasing every day.
The guides, me included, we are the ones that decimate the resource on a daily basis. And so, I think there nds to be something under guides that are running illegal, the fines are not enough. There’s lots of things. I don’t have the answers, it’s just the beginning. But I just wanted to bring it to y’all’s attention to let you know there is a problem. I can see it in the 22 years I’ve been doing it, a dramatic decrease. I think we’re going to have to come up with a solution. I don’t know what that solution is. We have lots of great ideals. I have talked to Chuck Naiser, he is on board, I’ve talked to Jay Watkins. There are lots of people that feel we have a problem, and there needs to be something addressed to it, and I wanted to bring it to y’all’s attention.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great. And your point is there is lots of rogue guides out there that aren’t adhering to regulation?
MR. DONNY CRUSE: There are, yes, sir. And not only that, y’all have the numbers, you can look and see how much better we are at catching fish than the general public. So, we’re taking the resources.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: That’s what you get paid to do.
MR. DONNY CRUSE: Exactly. You’re right, but it’s not illegal right now, I don’t know if an aggregate bag limit ‑… I don’t have all the answers.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Do fishing guides require a license… ‑‑ do you have a… — is there a certification to be a fishing guide?
MR. DONNY CRUSE: Yes, sir, you have to have a Coast Guard license, you have to have a drug card, and then with those you can get in with a Coast Guard license you can get your Texas state license.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Is that not sufficient enough?
MR. DONNY CRUSE: The first thing is the guide’s license is $240, I would like to see it $2,500 and lots of people would. I’m not trying to get into all the details but there are things you can do with it to… ‑‑
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Understood, okay great, thank you, Mr. Cruse. Appreciate it.
Cory Russell?
MR. CORY RUSSELL: Commissioner Hildebrand, Commissioners, sorry, Chairman. Thank y’all very much for your time. My name is Cory Russell. I am the Director of the Coastal Bend Guide Association. I’m here to represent them today. I’m also a full‑time guide along with Mr. Cruse. Been doing this full‑time now for eight years, going on nine. We have all, as guides, come to realize that there is an issue. We have a very large influx of guides going up every day. The resource — I’m not sure the resource can handle it in the long run. We have seen a very huge decrease in our resource; the fishery all up and down the Gulf coast. We have talked to multiple other guides all up and down the coast, and they have noticed it as well.
And we know there needs to be some time of change to fix that. Again, we are not sure what the answer is to that. We have a few ideas but on the guide licenses, maybe limited entry, cap it at 2,000 guides.
We’re sitting at approximately almost 1,800 guides currently for the Texas Gulf Coast. We are approximately for statistics— and you all have these numbers as well— we are two times better at catching our redfish than the general public, three times better at catching our trout, five times better at catching our Drum. So. we are much more efficient at it. Again, that’s what we get paid for. ut I’m not sure that the resource can handle it especially since the recent catastrophes we have had such as the freeze we had a few years ago. It really deprived us of that resource. The guide license fee like you said is roughly $200, I would like to see that go up to $2,500 and give that money back to the resource as far as our fishery… growing more fish to release, maybe more money to Parks and Wildlife to possibly have a governing or policing body. $2,500 that’s $5 million a year, if you capped it at 2,000, to put back to that resource, it’s a lot better than the $400,000 give or take, we’re getting now.
So, I would like to see that for our future generations, for our kids, and I want to see my kids be able to enjoy that in the future. So, thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Understood. What happened if we capped it, and you were 2001?
MR. CORY RUSSELL: That’s exactly it. But our oyster fishery, we already have that with oyster fishery. We have stricter regulations on that. After three convictions on citations, it’s jail time. He was talking about a bunch of our guides running illegally and doing some things they shouldn’t. The game wardens are very aware of all this. And they catch ’em when they can, but that being said, the fines are so minimal. There is no strict regulations.
‑‑
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: No disincentive. Okay, good, thank you very much for your comments. Anyone else not spoken today that would like to speak? Any comments from the Commissioners on what they’ve heard today? Nothing?
I will just say generally, thank you for the comments. I think they’re very helpful to the Commissioners to absorb what the general public is thinking, and in terms of regulation and while most of this was about CWD today, we did hear some other comments as well. So, I know for me, it helps just to frame the perspective on how the general public thinks about the agency and how we should react.
Anyway, thank you very much. And with that, ‑‑anything else?
I believe this Commission has completed its business, and I declare it adjourned at 3:45. p.m.
Thank you very much.
(ANNUAL PUBLIC HEARING ADJOURNED.)