TPW Commission
Work Session, January 22, 2025
Transcript
TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION
JANUARY 22, 2025
TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT
COMMISSION HEARING ROOM
4200 SMITH SCHOOL ROAD
AUSTIN, TEXAS 78744
WORK SESSION
CHAIRMAN JEFFERY D. HILDEBRAND: Okay, let’s see. Good morning. Before we begin, I’ll take roll. I, Chairman Hildebrand, am present.
Ms. ALLISON WINNEY: Mr. Chairman, your mic.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: You got it? Thank you. Commissioner Abell?
COMMISSIONER JAMES ABELL: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Doggett?
COMMISSIONER LESLIE DOGGETT: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Foster?
COMMISSIONER PAUL FOSTER: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Galo?
COMMISSIONER ANNA GALO: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Patton?
COMMISSIONER BOBBY PATTON: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Rowling?
COMMISSIONER BLAKE ROWLING: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Commissioner Scott?
COMMISSIONER DICK SCOTT: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: The meeting is called to order January 22, 2025, at 11:07 AM. Before proceeding with any business, I believe Dr. Yoskowitz has a statement to make.
DR. DAVID YOSKOWITZ: A public notice of this meeting containing all items on the proposed agendas has been filed in The Office of the Secretary of State as required by 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: Thank you. Commissioners as a reminder, please turn on your microphones and announce your name before you speak.
Before we proceed, I would like to announce that the order of the agenda will be as follows: We will hear Work Sessions Items #1, #2, #3, #5, #6, #7, #8, #11 and #12 through #22 today. Work Sessions Items #4, #9 and #10 will be skipped and heard only on Thursday’s Commission agenda instead.
First order of business is the approval of the minutes from the previous Work Session held November 6, 2024, which have already been distributed. Is there a motion for approval?
COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Scott, so moved.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Is there a second?
COMMISSIONER FOSTER: Second, Foster.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: All in favor, please say, “aye.”
[CHORUS OF AYES]
Any opposed? Hearing none, motion carries. Thank you.
The next order of business is the approval of minutes from the previous Regional public hearing held November 6, 2024, which have already been distributed. Is there a motion for approval?
COMMISSIONER ROWLING: Rowling, so moved.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Is there a second?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Patton, second.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: All in favor, please say, “aye.”
[ CHORUS OF AYES ]
Any opposed? Hearing none, motion carries. Thank you.
Work Session Item #1: Update on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Progress in Implementing the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Land and Water Resources Conservation and Recreation Plan.
We’ll have the Internal Affairs Update, Staff Recognition and then Land and Water Resources Conservation and Recreation Plan Update.
Dr. Yoskowitz, please make your presentation.
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Good morning, Chairman. Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, my name is David Yoskowitz, Executive Director of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
I would like to provide you an update germane to the Land and Water-related Plan and functions inside the department. As is customary, I will start off with an Internal Affairs (IA) update. The Office of Internal Affairs continues to work with our internal and external customers to uphold the best interest and confidence of the public and department employees as they investigate allegations of employee misconduct. The IA team continues to collaborate with divisions throughout the agency on a multitude of topics, as well as attend division meetings to train and share information pertinent to the ensuring staff are aware of policies, procedures and other relevant information to ensure compliance and minimize potential issues. The work of this team is essential to the agency as their focus is crucial to maintain a process that protects the rights of all involved, as well as the integrity of the department.
Since our last Commission meeting, we have had a couple of staff join our leadership team.
First, after an exhaustive search and interview process that evaluated a deep and competitive pool of candidates, Mr. Alan Cain was selected as our new Wildlife Division Director and assumed that role on January 1.
Alan received his bachelor’s and master’s degree from Texas Tech University and Texas A&M Kingsville respectively, and worked as a research associate at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute in Kingsville, prior to beginning his career with the department’s Wildlife Division as a private lands biologist in 2000. Alan held other positions, including Wildlife Biologist and District Leader in south Texas. Almost 13 years as the White-tailed Deer Program Leader, and the most recent year and a half as the Big Game Program Coordinator and Director.
During Alan’s 24-year tenure with the department’s Wildlife Division, he has successfully led, or been, a critical team member helping design and implement impactful programmatic and regulatory changes, including enhancements of the Managed Lands Deer Program, Mandatory Harvest Reporting and Digital Tagging Applications, the expansion of the Antlerless Deer Hunting Opportunities and working on Chronic Wasting Disease policy, management and regulations. Alan is a certified wildlife biologist by the Wildlife Society and has been a member of The Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society since 1991, serving as its past president in 2011. He is a current member and past Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Wildlife Management Academic Program at Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde. He previously served on the Texas Big Game Awards Scoring Committee and Measurer and Boone and Crockett Official Measurer, TPWD Mentor Program and is a graduate of the department’s former Natural Leaders Program, Class 4.
Alan’s desire is to grow relationships and trust with private landowners. It’s critical for the department to deliver on its mission. He will lead a team of the finest wildlife professionals in the country. Please join me in welcoming Alan Cain to his new role.
[ APPLAUSE ]
Stand up.
Before I move on, though, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Meredith Longoria for her exemplary fulfillment of the Interim Wildlife Division Director role since John Silovsky’s retirement this past fall. I valued and enjoyed the time and opportunity to work more closely with Meredith. Her talents, leadership and contributions are critically important to the success of the Wildlife Division and the agency.
Thank you, Meredith. And is Meredith in the audience?
[ APPLAUSE ]
Next, it is with great pleasure that I announce the selection of Ben Baker as the next Lieutenant Colonel Game Warden. This milestone in his career reflects not only his dedication, but his exemplary service and leadership in the field. Lieutenant Colonel Baker has over 16 years of service with the department and graduated from the Texas Game Warden Academy with the 54th Cadet Class in 2009. While he has moved up in rank through the years, his most recent duty station was in Region 8, District 3, Corpus Christi where he was a Captain Game Warden. Lieutenant Colonel Baker is a team builder who has demonstrated an ability to unite people toward a common goal. He fosters an environment of collaboration, support and mutual respect that has contributed to the success of the teams he has led. As he steps into this new role, I know he will help continue to elevate the Law Enforcement Division. Please join me in congratulating Lieutenant Colonel Ben Baker on his well-deserved promotion.
[ APPLAUSE ]
As part of our Land and Water Resources Conservation and Recreation Plan, I would like to provide an overview of our accomplishments during the first fiscal year of the current plan, 2024. The plan covers a period of ten years which spans from Fiscal Years 2024 to 2033 that consist of three goals, 14 objectives and 68 action items. We update our progress on a quarterly basis, which I share some of those highlights with the Commission at our meetings. Of the 68 action items, 37 action item deadlines are on an annual basis while the remaining 31 are multi-year based. Goal 1, which is practice, encourage and enable science-based conservation and stewardship of natural and cultural resources, is made up of 21 annual and 19 multi-year action items. Goal 2, which is increase access to and participation in the outdoors, is made of ten annual and 12 multi-year action items. And Goal 3, which is to educate, inform and engage Texans in support of conservation and recreation, consists entirely of annual based action items. There are six in total there.
So, reporting out on the progress that we’ve made within the first year of the ten-year plan. For the first year of reporting in fiscal year 2024, when you look at just the 37 action items that are annual based– so, on the left side of this graphic– we were able to accomplish at 100% completion rate 23 items between 90% and 99%, five items between 80% and 89%, five items, and then four items below 80%. As an example of some of those items that we completed 100% of, for example, restored ten acres of degraded or lost oyster reef, we also designed, planned and implemented 25 aquatic habitat restoration enhancement projects, and conducted or collaborated on 70 applied research projects.
For those items that fell below the 80% level in the annual action items, these were due to environmental conditions, and also conditions that we had at some of our facilities. For example, the goal of treating 15,000 acres of aquatic invasive or nuisance vegetation annually while environmental conditions, such as freezes and floods, didn’t require us to do that much treatment. We also want to provide about 30,000 people access to the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. In 2024, that was closed to — for the most part to the ability to attend the Freshwater Fisheries Center because of renovation and upgrades to that facility.
But starting later this year, that facility will be back online, and we will be making strong progress to that goal.
Also, two of the items that we missed on in 2024 were due to staffing changes and vacancies. And those will be — have been rectified and will be back on track again.
When you look at the remaining 31 action items that are multi-year based, referring to the chart on the right side at this point– so these are ones that remain throughout the period of time between 2024 and 2033– we’ve hit six of those items at 100% and a number of items, as you can see there as we move around that wheel, are still in progress. For the multi-year-based action items, a majority of those that have due dates in 2028 or 2033, 22 of those in total of those multi-year action items. Of the items that we did accomplish at 100% in just the first year was one, develop a state park land acquisition strategy by 2025– we hit that a year early– assemble a cultural resource inventory strategy for Texas state parks by 2025 that prioritizes locations for conducting inventories and public and cultural resources. We hit that. And then maintaining the existing 79 Texas paddling trails for access to paddling, fishing and wildlife viewing. We hit that goal as well in the first year. All these multi-action items are on track, and the teams are tracking those throughout the year, and I’ll be able to report back on those multi-years next year.
We will be providing the Commission a summary report of the progress made on the action items through Fiscal Year 2024. That will be coming to the Commission in the next couple of weeks. And the division directors are in tight contact with their leadership teams every couple of weeks, and then they share that information on progress that they’re making that they’re responsible for with the teams throughout the division. I personally will be sharing progress that we’ve made on this action plan in the next Town Hall that we hold for the entire department.
And next, I would like to end on a note of just great work that the department with all of its partners was able to complete at the beginning of last December. Myself and Craig Bonds, along with a number of the staff from the Wildlife Division, were out at Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area which is just south of Alpine to take place in the translocation of Desert Bighorn Sheep from that wildlife management area to Franklin Mountains State Park which is in El Paso. In 2022, and even before, we started getting concerned at Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area about a surplus of Bighorn sheep on that mountain and the carrying capacity. So, it was decided that we needed to do a significant translocation. And at the time, and even though this had been thought about before, the Franklin Mountains seemed to be the best opportunity to move Bighorn sheep there. It had no aoudad in that mountain range, which was good for M. ovi bacterium that we want to avoid. And also, the predator situation in the Franklin Mountains was very minimal.
So, with multi-stakeholder participation we all gathered at Alpine and in Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area, 80 volunteers, including those from the department. This was supported by external organizations such as The Texas Bighorn Society, Wild Sheep Foundation, Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, amongst many others.
The financial backing of this endeavor was critically important. Before we could move those Bighorn sheep to Franklin Mountains State Park, we needed to put water on the landscapes. So, we had two guzzlers that were built by the hands of volunteers led by the Texas Bighorn Society. In all, our goal was to try to capture 80 Bighorn sheep, and we captured 77, which was a tremendous effort that was done very quickly with a lot of great help. Out of those 77 Bighorn sheep that we captured, 40 were ewes. And out of those 40, we had 84% of them pregnant. So, come this spring, lambing season looks very good for those sheep on Franklin Mountains.
The key goals here were to achieve, you know, translocation, introduce sheep to their former range, and this was achieved with hitting every milestone that we could have. So, I want to thank the Wildlife Division for leading this effort. I want to thank all of our partners for pitching in not only sweat equity, but financial equity to get us to this point. So, thank you very much. And Chairman, that concludes my presentation.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, thank you, Dr. Yoskowitz. Any questions by the Commission?
Okay. A couple of comments by myself. One, congratulations on all the staff revisions and additions. I think I continue to be impressed by the quality of the people that we have here, and the quality of the bench strength that we’ve got. Lieutenant Colonel, Alan, being able to hire from within, that is just fantastic. It’s a mark of a great agency. So, thank you guys. Thank you for serving. We’re really excited about what the next several years looks like. And then, secondly, do we know, how are the Bighorn sheep doing?
DR. YOSKOWITZ: So, Chairman…
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: I assume we follow them by GPS?
DR. YOSKOWITZ: …We do. We have the satellite as you saw in the photograph. They are all collared. Unfortunately, we lost one a couple of weeks ago. We think that was due potentially to that young ram not being able to access water. But that’s it as of this point, which points to really strong success in that translocation.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: You talked about a guzzler station, I assume that’s some form of water trough?
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Yeah, I wish I had a picture here. Well, yeah, capturing rainwater and moving that to storage tanks and then allowing that access to water for the Bighorn sheep.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: I assume limited rainfall in the area?
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Limited rainfall in the area. Commissioner Foster was there. He saw some of those guzzlers on the mountain. We could use some rainfall.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: How much rain would they get in that region on an annual basis, do you think?
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Alan?
MR. ALAN CAIN: Less than ten inches.
COMMISSIONER HILDEBRAND: Less than ten?
MR. CAIN: Yeah, it’s pretty limited rainfall up there. They do get an opportunity in some instances to fill those guzzlers. We haven’t yet, but hopefully, we’ll get some rain soon.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: So, what do the sheep do for water?
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Why don’t you come on up, Alan?
MR. CAIN: Sorry about that. For the record, Alan Cain.
So, a lot of animals will utilize the plants that they eat and absorb water through that and meet their needs. And then, you know, there’s, I don’t know, for sure, I would need to check in with Froy, but I suspect there are other water sources there, too. So, there’s a lot of the vegetation they eat, and through the digestion process, they’ll be able to absorb water that way.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Are we fairly confident that they will actually survive and reproduce over an extended period of time?
MR. CAIN: Yeah, that’s the goal. And just the fact that after 30 days post capture in translocation release, we’ve only had one mortality. That speaks volumes to the durability of those sheep, their ability to survive in that harsh landscape over there. So, we’re hopeful. And I think for long-term growth and to Dr. Yoskowitz’s point, the idea or that 84% of those were pregnant ewes, I mean, we expect that population to grow and have some buffer to allow that population to expand and hopefully utilize that later to translocate to other areas in the Trans-Pecos where sheep are absent or we have low numbers.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: How many did you transport?
MR. CAIN: 77 sheep. So, we had one mortality.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: 77 sheep. How many male and female?
MR. CAIN: There were 40 females, as I recall, and…
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Yeah, rest male.
MR. CAIN: …the rest males.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, well, congratulations. It looked like a complicated operation.
MR. CAIN: There were lots of moving parts, and I just can’t thank our staff enough. They did an incredible job. We had to flex on the capture date for weather and other commitments. So, this kind of got… and helicopter companies that couldn’t make it. And so, we scrambled and got it done at the last minute. And this is a monumental achievement for our folks to be able to restore those sheep.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Yeah. Great success.
DR. YOSKOWITZ: I do want to mention one thing that I forgot...
We had… we estimate 400 community members there at the release wanting to see those Bighorn sheep come back onto the landscape, a homecoming. Because they had been there and they had been extirpated.
COMMISSIONER HILDEBRAND: When was the last time that we had Bighorn sheep in that area?
DR. YOSKOWITZ: The last time that we had Bighorn sheep in that area? Decades.
MR. CAIN: I don’t even recall, years ago.
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Yeah, decades.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Decades.
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Yes.
COMMISSIONER ROWLING: They all tested negative for M. ovi, right?
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Yes, they all tested negative. We had them tested, had that overnight flown to Washington State, and we got those and they all tested negative.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: And they don’t carry CWD, do they?
[ LAUGHTER ]
You’re not answering that. Okay. All right. Great job, really wonderful success. Thank you, guys, for that effort.
Okay. With that, we’ve got a Work Session Item #2: Financial Overview — Request to Exceed Capital Budget Transfer Limitations.
Mr. Reggie Pegues, please make your presentation.
MR. REGGIE PEGUES: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners.
For the record, my name is Reggie Pegues, Chief Financial Officer for Parks and Wildlife.
This morning, I will be presenting the Financial Overview. I’ll be covering the following topics: FY 24 Revenue Summaries through December, Hunting/Fishing License Revenue, State Parks Revenue and Visitation, Boat Related Revenues, Also FY 25 budget adjustments through December, and finally a Request to Exceed Capital Budget Transfer Limits.
First up is License Revenue with a five-year comparison from License Year ‘21 through License Year ‘25. Over this five-year period, revenues are steady with only a 2.8% change from record year ‘21 to ‘25 to finish at $77 million through December. Next is a more detailed two-year comparison by license type. The largest variance was an increase in resident hunt at 14.5% and nonresident fish at 8% to finish at an overall increase of 2.8%. Moving onto state parks. First up is the five-year comparison of park revenues. The five-year comparison shows a slight dip after record year FY 22 but then trending up starting in FY ’23 from $18 million to finish at $19.3 million through December. Next is a more detailed comparison by fee type. Entrance fees are up almost 5% ahead of last year to finish at an overall increase of 1.4%, and total visitation is also up by 4%.
Moving on to boat revenues. We’ll begin with the five-year comparison. FY 21 was a record year at $6 million followed by a slight leveling off through FY 24. However, so far FY 25 revenues are trending upward to finish at $4.7 million. Next up is the two-year comparison by fee type. This shows a 13.8% increase in registrations to finish with an overall increase of 8.7%. Next moving onto budget adjustments. This is a summary of budget adjustments since the budget was approved in the August Commission meeting. This is a summary of the more detailed information that’s provided to you each on a monthly basis. As you may recall, the starting point for the FY 25 budget was the General Appropriation Act, plus estimates refining that we have authority to carry forward such as federal and capital.
Also since this is the second year of the biennium, we also have authority to carry forward not just capital and federal funds, but any funds appropriated to TPWD. These amounts represent those adjustments and additional amounts included in the budget. First off, we have appropriated receipts of $16.4 million. This includes approximately $10 million relating to natural resource damage assessments relating to Galveston Bay restoration. Next is capital construction. An additional $29.6 million of unexpended balances from ‘24 to ‘25. Next a decrease in estimated federal funds of $16.8 million. About half of this is due to a new funding source that was not received in preparation of this report. And kind of just FYI, as we move forward, our federal funds will be adjusted as we receive our federal apportionments for sportfish restoration and our wildlife restoration that typically occurs in February. That should be reflected in the next Commission meeting. Fringe adjustments, these are amounts to process retirement insurance and social security.
And next, operational and noncapital UB, a decrease of $13.8 million. These are those additional funds that I mentioned. Since this is the second year of the biennium, these are kind of hard to get a grasp on, but these are best estimates at the time of the preparation of the August Commission number, we showed an estimate of $52 million. The estimate came in $13.8 lower than that. So, this gives us total adjustments of $26 million, or a 2.7 increase of the original budget that was approved in August.
Next, moving on to Request to Exceed Capital Budget Transfer Limitations. This would allow TPWD to purchase additional body armor vests for game wardens and state park police. In order for this to happen, the General Appropriations Act requires the Commission approval and then approval by the Legislative Budget Board and the Governor’s Office. The justification for this request is that ballistic body armor in both divisions have expired and the pricing has increased significantly over the last five years. This specific armor known as Multi-hit Rifle Protection will provide the best protection during high-risk situations such as active shooter and border operations. This exhibit shows the breakout. The split would be $831,000 out of Fund 9, the Game, Fish, and Water Safety Account for game wardens to purchase 365 vests and $319,000 of Sporting Goods Sales Tax for state parks police to purchase 140 vests for a total cost of over $1 million. And this is not an increase in overall authority, this is just allowing us to transfer from operating to purchase additional capital in excess of the amount that was appropriated.
As of January 17, we’ve had one comment in disagreement, the disagreement related to capital land acquisition and not relevant to this particular item which is capital equipment items.
Staff requests this item be placed on Thursday’s agenda for public comment and action. This concludes my presentation, and I’ll be happy to take any questions.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you, any questions by the Commission?
COMMISSIONER FOSTER: Jeff, I’ve got one.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Yes, Chairman Foster?
COMMISSIONER FOSTER: Commissioner Foster. And this is not that big a deal, it’s just interesting. Why are boat revenues up 13%?
Did something happen between last year and this year to cause... because that seems like a big increase.
MR. PEGUES: A part of what happens is our boat regis… we had a record year a few years back in boat registrations. They are typically done on a two-year cycle. So that’s kind of just the carry over. It’s up one year, down the second year, and then those renewals come up the second year. So, it kind of goes that way across the years.
COMMISSIONER FOSTER: But nothing specific going on?
MR. PEGUES: Nothing specific like any particular factor other than that.
COMMISSIONER FOSTER: All right, thanks.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Any other questions? Reggie, go back to your slide 4 for a moment. It’s just an interesting observation.
Go back one more, sorry. So, it is amazing to me how consistent licensing is over, you know, a long period of time, I mean, it’s plus or minus 5%. Now, go one more, go to slide 4, and the other kind of observation is hunting is flat year on year from a licensing stand point, but resident fish is up pretty substantially. Is there any commentary by our coastal folks and/or hunting folks that would enlighten us more on that? Because that is the… that’s the indices as to activity. So, Dakus, you want to comment on that?
MR. DAKUS GEESLIN: Happy too. Sure.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: 14%, that’s a lot.
MR. DAKUS GEESLIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, Dakus Geeslin, Deputy Director Coastal Fisheries. I think a lot of what you are seeing in my mind is two things, and I’ve got colleagues that may agree or disagree, is access. Access to public areas to fish is far greater than those areas we have to hunt. Being a private-owned state, most of the hunting occurs in those lands. We have limited public access to hunt. We also have barriers to entry. In order to get into hunting, it’s a fairly substantial investment from that prospective hunter. From an angling perspective, whether that’s in the saltwater or in the freshwater, we have tackle loaner programs, we have lower barriers to entry to invest into that sport and get going. You could go get a, you know, fishing combo outfit for probably less than $100. That is not the case within hunting. There are probably some other areas, I’d say, you know, harvesting a fish or catching and releasing a fish if you are new to the outdoors is a little different than initially going out and hunting and harvesting an animal.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Really, access, affordability, all kinds of things. But on a trend perspective, what I continue to hear is that, you know, our coastal areas are just inundated with fishermen, and the trend continues to grow. Would you comment on that, and thinking about what regulations should look like and protection of those bays?
MR. GEESLIN: No, absolutely. And you’re hearing some of the same things that I would characterize that as a blessing and a curse. We have one of the greatest marine fisheries in the nation, we promote that. But also, we see a lot of folks coming down to the coast. So, the negative side of that is that some folks, you know, they don’t want to be out with a crowd in a crowded bay on a crowded pier. So, some of that, your experience in angling may be compromised strictly due to that concentration out along the coast. We’ve all seen that on any given weekend on the coast. I would say that is not unique. Those trends you are observing, Mr. Chairman, are not unique to Texas. We’ve seen over time– there’s national surveys to support this– that angling, whether it’s freshwater or saltwater, continues to increase, and unfortunately, that hunting just hasn’t seen the increase from a departmental perspective that we would like to see.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Well, I mean for future Commissions, it’s clearly… it is something to be cognizant of, because there’s… that pressure is going to continue. And so, we have got to be vigilant on certainly protecting our coastal areas.
Reggie, back one more. Go to slide 3, now on hunting, the relative flatness of hunting… let’s see if we could do that. On hunting, let’s see. Well, you’re pretty flat on hunting. But has our revenue, as Dakus kind of commented because of access, is that dropping over time?
MR. PEGUES: I would probably have to go back to just so that you recall kind of the COVID… probably if I go to the five-year... Yes, since our record year, there has kind of been overall a leveling off from that year to kind of go flat for the last few years, and that’s across all the lines.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: It looks pretty flat. Anyway, comments are… obviously, we need to do everything that we can to promote access in our state parks and our wildlife areas. And so, I think hopefully some of the things that we’re doing on CWD that will be beneficial to the overall hunting environment. Okay, any other questions for Reggie? All right. Thank you very much.
Work Session Item #3. Ms. Brandy Meeks, please make your presentation. Internal Audit Update.
MS. BRANDY MEEKS: Good morning, Chairman, Commissioners. For the record, my name is Brandy Meeks, I’m the Internal Audit Director.
This morning, I would like to update you on our current and last year’s internal audit plans, recent external audits and assessments, as well as go over some changes to our internal standards. So, this and the next slide shows the status of last year’s internal audit plan. And please make note that the statuses in yellow font to the right are the projects for which we’ve made progress since the last time we met. As you can see, we have almost completed last year’s plan. We are in the reporting phase for the Cloud Computing Cybersecurity Audit, the reporting phase for the Audit of the CO-OP Recreation Grants, and we just recently completed the External Public Safety Programs Audit. We are also almost complete with our Fiscal Control audits. We are finishing up on one state park audit, the Martin Creek Lake State Park. We are also in the reporting phase for the Meridian and San Angelo State Park Audits. We recently completed Lake Casa Blanca, and we have now completed all nine of our Law Enforcement Office Fiscal Control Audits.
This and the next slide show the status of our current audit plan.
We have six assurance projects on this year’s plan. We have actually started two of those, and actually that first one, the Audit of the Local Park Recreation Grants, we had our entrance conference yesterday; so, we are technically in the first day of fieldwork for that project. We’re in the planning phase for the Audit of the State Park Fiscal Control Specialist Program, and then under IT and Cybersecurity Projects, we are technically now in day one of fieldwork for our audit of the IT Help Desk.
As far as Advisory Projects, we have attended one steering committee meeting for the BRITS rewrite, we are following up on all audit items due during the first and second quarters of this year. And I will be performing a peer review of the Department of Information Resources’ Internal Audit shop next month, and currently, I’m planning for that.
As far as External Audits and Assessments are concerned, FEMA will be starting a grant monitoring desk review next week.
And now to discuss some of the changes to our standards, the new Global Internal Audit Standards, which is also referred to as the “Red Book,” went into effect on January 9 of this month. Our charters have been updated and approved, so thank you very much for that.
That includes our Internal Audit Charter as well as our Audit Subcommittee Charter. There is some changes to the terminology. The 2017 International Professional Practices Framework, or IPPF, will now be referred to as the Global Internal Audit Standards. The Internal Audit Director is now the Chief Auditor, and the Office of Internal Audit is now the Chief Auditor’s Office.
If I had to give you a depiction of the major changes to the standards, this would be it. And this slide says a whole lot. But the main takeaway from this slide is that the new standards want more communication and collaboration between our governing body, you and the Audit Subcommittee, with Internal Audit and Management. So, I’ll be working to make sure that whenever we undergo our next peer review, we have remediated any gaps that I see in that process. And that brings me to my next slide, underperforming the gap analysis between the old standards and the new standards. These are the areas where I see that we need to make some improvements.
We need to involve input from the Audit Subcommittee Chair on the performance evaluation and remuneration of the Chief Auditor in collaboration with Executive Management.
My team and I need to develop an Internal Audit Strategic Plan along with Objectives and KPIs, and we need to have that plan approved by both the Audit Subcommittee and Executive Management, and then we need to start reporting on that plan in addition to the Internal Audit Plan, the Annual Plan. We also need to enhance and report on our Quality Assurance and Improvement Program annually. And then we also need more collaboration between the Chief Auditor, Executive Management and the Audit Subcommittee and the development of the Internal Audit budget. And I’ll also be responsible for communicating any insufficient financial resources to the Internal Audit shop.
And then lastly, my team and I need to develop and apply a methodology for rating all of our Internal Audit issues.
And so, with that, my goal is to meet with the Audit Subcommittee and the Audit Subcommittee Chairman prior to the next time we all get together in March. And maybe it will be during that time period when y’all are in town. But to meet with you to present to you our implementation plan so that we can bridge these gaps, to receive your feedback on those plans, and just to ensure and make sure that our Internal Audit function aligns with the revision to the standards.
And this completes my presentation. I’m happy to answer any questions.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Any questions for Mrs. Meeks…Ms. Meeks?
If not, thank you very much.
MS. BRANDY MEEKS: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Appreciate it. All right. Work Session Item #5: Rule Review, Request Permission to Publish Proposed Changes in the Texas Register, Chapter 57, Fisheries, Chapter 58, Oysters, Shrimp and Finfish.
Ms. Laura Carr, please make your presentation.
MS. LAURA CARR: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners.
I’m Laura Carr, I’m an Assistant General Counsel for the department.
And this morning’s presentation will be requesting permission to publish proposed changes to Chapters 57 and 58 arising out of our rule review process. As you have heard for several meetings now, we have been undergoing the rule review process which is a statutory process where every state agency must review its rules every four years to determine whether the reason for initially adopting the rule continues to exist. We have completed our review of the Parks and Wildlife rules in the Texas Administrative Code. And these are proposed changes arising out of that last round of review.
The Chapters reviewed were Chapters 56, 57, 58 and 65. And we will be proposing changes to Chapters 57 and 58. This is also an opportunity, I want to mention, to make minor housekeeping-type changes to the rules.
So, our first proposed change relates to the definition for freshwater mussel. It currently references an American Fisheries Society publication that doesn’t actually have a definition for that term in it. So, we are just proposing to strike the reference to that publication name. Second, we would like to add a provision to the rule that restates the statutory requirement that a TPWD permit is required to introduce fish, shellfish or aquatic plants into public water. Our rules don’t explicitly contain this requirement, but our staff believe that adding it would be helpful for public awareness and enforcement purposes so that the public understands what the compliance obligations are when they’re looking at what different types of permits are required.
The third proposed change is to remove a requirement for the Texas Department of Agriculture’s (TDA) aquaculture license when someone is applying for an offshore aquaculture permit. TDA no longer licenses aquaculture, as of a few years ago, and so therefore, this requirement is obsolete.
Fourth, we are proposing to just remove some language from the rule that refers to oyster closure areas that expired on its own terms on November 1, 2024.
And then, finally, some very minor grammatical changes to that section listed up there. We are adding a missing “to” into a sentence and deleting some repeated words in another subsection.
We request permission to publish the proposed changes in the Texas Register for public comments.
And I will be happy to take any questions.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, any questions for Ms. Carr? If not, thank you very much.
Work Session Item #6, Digital Licensing and Tagging Requirements, Request Permission to publish proposed changes in the Texas Register.
Mr. Chris Cerny, please make your presentation.
MR. CHRIS CERNY: Hello, Chairman and Commissioners. Thank you for your time today. For the record, my name is Chris Cerny, and I’m the Business Analyst for the Wildlife Division.
Today, I will be requesting the Commission’s permission to publish proposed changes to regulations that are intended to provide fully digital licenses and tag options for all recreational hunting, fishing and combination license types starting for the next license year.
To provide context for this request, I would like to start with a brief review of the Digital License and Tagging Program. Fully digital licenses, including digital tags, were authorized by House Bill 3081 during the 2021 Legislative Session and became available to customers for the 2022-23 License Year. During that pilot year, only Residents Super Combo, Senior Super Combo and Lifetime Combo license tags were offered with the fully digital option and were available only for online purchase. More than 80,000 digital licenses were sold in that first season, which accounted for approximately 14% of the total sales volume for those respective license types.
Due to the popularity of the digital option in the pilot year, along with input received from customers, staff sought and received Commission approval to expand the available digital offerings to include the Youth Hunting license, Lifetime Hunting and Fishing license tags and Exempt Angler tags for the following 2023-24 License Year. Growth and sales for those existing combo license types, along with strong sales for the new offerings led to more than 123,000 digital licenses sold, which equates to about 17% of the total sales volume for those respective license types in that license year.
For the 2024-25 License Year that is currently underway, the available digital offerings were updated to accommodate the addition of the new Spotted Sea Trout tag. And additionally, the mobile app used for digital tagging was completely rebranded in time for the start of the season and is now known as the Texas Hunt & Fish mobile app. Along with the rebranding, significant enhancements were delivered to the mobile platform to improve the user experience. With a license year only partially complete, more than 144,000 digital licenses have been sold, accounting for better than 21% of total sales and 60% of online sales for those respected license types to date.
The strong growth in sales of digital licenses over the past years indicates that the digital program is popular with customers and supports the goal of expanding the digital option to additional license types.
Shifting gears, I will now provide a quick review of how the digital license and tagging process works in practice to provide clarity on what this proposed rule package requires of hunters or anglers. If a hunter or angler who possesses a digital license is checked by a game warden in the field, that individual must be able to furnish proof of their license on their mobile device as shown on your screen. Game wardens do have partner apps to support field checks of digital licenses and tags, but the license holder is ultimately responsible for being able to furnish proof of license. Once a harvested animal that requires tagging is taken into possession, a digital license holder must immediately execute a tag using the Texas Hunt & Fish mobile application. The screen shot on the right of your screen shows the tag selection process within the app, which then launches the user into a harvest report and tag execution workflow.
The mobile app allows for the execution of a digital tag with or without data service, as shown on your screen. In either scenario, instructions are provided to that license holder on what steps to take upon execution of the tag. If the license holder is offline at the time of tagging, they must finalize the report once data service is available again.
In addition to the execution of the digital tag via the Texas Hunt & Fish app, deer and turkey must have handwritten document attached to the carcass that included appropriate detail as shown in the photos on the screen.
Fish are not required to have any documentation attached. Digital tag execution does satisfy mandatory reporting requirements where applicable. Moving forward, these existing standards for how to execute a digital tag will remain the same. I want to clarify this because amendments to sections of Texas Administrative Code that deal with the tagging requirements are included in this rule package. However, the proposed changes simply ensure consistent application of these existing standards to the expanded list of digital license offerings. It’s important to note that nothing in this rule package changes what digital license holders are required to do to satisfy license display and tagging requirements.
Just a bit more on digital tag execution. Like license sales, digital tag usage has increased year over year from that pilot year, as you can see in this table. Nearly 40,000 digital tags have been executed so far during this current license year alone, which is double what we saw during that pilot year. Not surprisingly, White-tailed deer harvest accounts for the vast majority of tag usage across all years, followed by turkey and oversized Red Drum.
You’ll also notice that there are a total of 13 digital trout tags that have been executed thus far in this inaugural season for that tag type.
Given the volume of usage, I’m happy to report that our app support team has been contacted by fewer than 150 individuals for help with the digital tagging process so far this season, which suggests that the mobile app is intuitive, stable and enables customers to readily understand the process. The careful rollout of the digital license and tagging program over the course of three seasons has paid off by providing the agency time to improve and mature our technology, to make sure the customers have access to intuitive systems. That intuitive design for customers also supports enforcement in the field, and as a result, our game wardens have provided positive feedback on encounters with digital license holders and digitally tagged harvests.
So, given the continued growth and popularity of digital offerings and the stability of the systems that support the process, staff propose amendments to relevant sections of Texas Administrative Code to provide digital options for all recreational hunting, fishing and combination license types beginning with next license year which will be 2025-26, and those will go on sale for August 15th of this year. Importantly, the proposed changes will provide digital options for non-resident customers who have not yet been able to take advantage of digital offerings that are currently only available to residents. One important point to note is that the rule language provided in your Commission books omitted one license item that we do intend to provide digitally. With your approval today, rule language will be updated to include a digital option for the Recreational Controlled Exotic Snake permit prior to submission to the Texas Register. All told, these proposed changes will provide 56 recreational hunting, fishing and combination licenses along with relevant endorsements, tags and permit offerings.
As a final point of clarification, while my presentation is focused on the digital tagging process as a whole, my request to the Commission today will specifically seek permission to publish amendments to rule language contained in Chapter 53 of Texas Administrative Code concerning license issuance procedures. Relevant changes to other sections of Texas Administrative Code that specify how harvested game birds, game animals and game fish must be digitally tagged, and which license items can be used for this option, are also included in the Statewide Hunting and Fishing Proclamations. These changes will be referenced again by my colleagues later today when they make their presentations that include other proposed amendments to those sections of code. These digital license and tagging rules function across these three chapters of Texas Administrative Code as a cohesive package that establishes which licenses and tags are available digitally, and how those products must be applied in the field. As stated previously, the digital tag rule amendments presented by myself and my colleagues today do not change anything regarding how digital tagging or license displays are accomplished. We simply are attempting to expand the list of license offerings that have a fully digital option and align relevant sections of code that outline those tagging requirements.
In conclusion, staff requests the Commission’s permission to publish these proposed changes in the Texas Register for public comment.
Thank you for your time today. That concludes my presentation.
I’m happy to take any questions.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, any questions of Mr. Cerny?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Patton. Is this on? Thank you. Okay. I kind of have two questions.
One, this tagging in no way is including like MLDP tags, is it?
MR. CERNY: No, it is not. This is only for hunting license tags.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Is that contemplated or potentially something that you see?
MR. CERNY: Digital option for MLDP tagging, you mean?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Right.
MR. CERNY: At this time, that’s not being considered, no.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay. My second question would be, where are we with the Federal Duck Stamp in a digital tagging world?
MR. CERNY: Yeah, good question. So, this year, this hunting season is the first season now where hunters are not required to carry a physical Duck Stamp. There were federal statutes adopted that went into effect for this hunting season that now allow hunters across the U.S. to furnish electronic proof of purchase of that Federal Duck Stamp. So, hunters can now show everything basically in a digital format on their mobile device.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, any other questions? I would say Commissioner Patton had a good point, Mr. Cerny.
Let’s look into the idea of incorporating the MLD program into the digital process.
MR. CERNY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Being an MLD permit holder, it’s quite cumbersome. Look, it’s all doable from the paper perspective, but it would really be nice if we could get it all from… to a digital format. Let’s at least investigate it, determine what that might look like. I’m sure there’s costs associated with it and complexities. If you would, have the department look at it.
MR. CERNY: Understood. Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, thank you.
And I’ve got to backtrack to Work Session Item #5 and make the following statement.
If there’s no further questions, I’ll authorize staff to publish the rules in the Texas Register. Thank you, James, I caught that. And then further, if there are no further questions, I’ll authorize the staff to publish the rules in the Texas Register relating to Work Session Item #6 and digital licensing and tagging requirements. Thank you very much.
MR. CERNY: Thank you, all.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Okay. All right. Work Session Item #7, 2025-2026 Statewide Recreational and Commercial Fishing Proclamation, Request Permission to Publish Proposed Changes in the Texas Register.
Mr. Dakus Geeslin will be presenting today in lieu of Mr. Brian Bartram. Mr. Geeslin, please make your presentation.
MR. DAKUS GEESLIN: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Commissioner, Dr. Yoskowitz. For the record, my name is Dakus Geeslin, and I serve as our Deputy Director here in Coastal Fisheries.
Today, I will be presenting our Statewide Recreation and Commercial Fishing Proclamation for License Year 2026. There are no Inland proposals, or Freshwater proposals. So, I’ll move right along with our Coastal proposals.
Okay, you all will certainly recall back in our November preview of our statewide item, we’re proposing to change the commercial minimum length limit for Greater Amberjack in those Texas state waters from 34-inches to 40-inches total length. Currently, that minimum size is, in federal waters, is 36-inches fork length. Our 40-inches is equivalent to that 36-inch fork length. And just as a sake for consistency for every other length-based harvest regulation we use in Texas, we use that total length of fish measurement. The difference, as you’ll see in the graphic below, the total length is measured from the tip of the snout to the tip of the tail, that’s that green line. Whereas the fork length is measured from the tip of the snout to the fork of the tail, again, that’s that red line and you can see there on the graphic. So, we maintain the total length.
The purpose of this change is simply to match the Amberjack minimum size limits in federal waters for the commercial sector of our fishery. Like many of those reciprocal federal and state water regulations, this again promotes the ease of enforcement and compliance among our participants which are for this particular case are our commercial fishermen. It certainly reduces the confusion amongst that sector.
All right, for these next two items, we’ve got some administrative, what I’ll call administrative transfers. These are strictly, strictly just a move from one section to the other. So, I wanted to just be crystal clear. And my colleague, Chris Cerny, did a great job. These are just moves, they change nothing that’s already in existence within the code itself. These work in conjunction with those proposed changes that Chris presented just a minute ago.
You’ll surely recall our Spotted Sea Trout tag discussion back in March of 2024. Following that meeting in which the oversized Spotted Sea Trout tag was implemented, the rule that was adopted served as a temporary interim provision within the code, and we parked it in 57.985 as a standalone section. We currently have 57.981 open, and that deals with bag limits and size limits that we changed here before you. So, the proposed amendment will simply move this section of the code back to its more appropriate spot from 57.985 to .981. And similarly, the proposal related to the Digital Exempt Angler tag will move the language concerning Exempt Angler tags, and those tags include those folks, youngsters that are under 17, folks with an intellectual disability, or folks that were born before January 1 in 1931. They’re available to get a Digital Exempt Angler tag. Again, we had a temporary placeholder in 57.984. We were simply removing that from .984 and park it over in .981 where it more appropriately belongs.
So, today, I’m seeking permission to publish the proposed changes in the Texas Register for the public comment. We will give… assuming that you give me permission to publish, we’ll seek adoption at the March Commission meeting. And assuming that takes place, these changes would take effect on September 1, 2025, that starts off that License Year 2026.
And I am happy to take any questions you all might have.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great, any questions of Mr. Geeslin?
If not, I’ll authorize staff to publish rules in the Texas Register.
MR. GEESLIN: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you.
Work Session Item #8, 2025-2026 Statewide Hunting and Migratory Game Bird Proclamation, Request Permission to Publish Proposed Changes in the Texas Register.
Mr. Shaun Oldenburger, please make your presentation, and Mr. Shawn Gray.
MR. SHAUN OLDENBURGER: Good morning, Chairman and fellow Commissioners. For the record, I’m Shaun Oldenburger. I’m the Small Game Program Director. Today, we will be presenting proposed changes to the 2025-26 Statewide Hunting and Migratory Game Bird Proclamation and then request permission to publish proposed changes in the Texas Register for potential action item at the March Commission meeting.
All right. Starting off with the Migratory Game Bird Proclamation, there are two changes to Federal Frameworks. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requires us to make these changes with regard to migratory game bird hunting. So, we’ll go through those shortly. Season lengths and daily bag limits are maintained with a few exceptions. Mostly due to teal season days and the reduction. I’ll go through that in a second.
Also, with regards to all staff proposals, the Migratory Game Bird Advisory Committee unanimously approved all staff proposals. So, the two federal framework changes required by the Fish and Wildlife Service are Northern Pintail bag limits. I’ll go in to that here in a few slides. And then also, Teal season day reduction.
We will start off with the early Teal season length. Blue-winged teal breeding population was below a 4.7 million bird threshold in the region. That’s a requirement as far as the harvest strategy amongst all four flyways to have an early teal season of 16 days. Historically, we’ve had that for almost two decades now– as you can see here in the graph showing where Blue-winged teal populations have been– and so, we’re going to restrict it to the 2025-26 season to nine days. So that creates some additional changes we’ll go through in the next slides with regards to this population.
So just a little background here before I jump into this, the Migratory Treaty Act only allows three and a half months of hunting opportunity on any single species. So that is 107 days of opportunity. So, we can only have 107 exposure days for all hunting seasons on migratory game birds. So, in the High Plains Mallard Management Unit, we are maximized out historically on the number of days we offer with 107 days. And so, the realization, we have a 16-day teal season, so now that’s nine days, so that offers us an additional seven days to put somewhere else with regards to the hunting season.
So, we’re going to propose to extend a regular season length by seven days in the High Plains Mallard Management Unit. That’s that area there west of Abilene, Vernon, and then basically northwest there of Del Rio on the map. And so, we’re going to put that at the beginning of the season because really that is the only place, traditionally, we could put that additional hunting opportunity because of the extended seasons that we do get with the High Plains Mallard Management Unit.
Just a little background. This is kind of a special area. We are allowed a little more hunting opportunity here compared to the North and South zone, and that’s why we have a little bit more complication with the High Plains Mallard Management Unit and those 107 days.
Rails and Gallinule seasons. This is also a change due to the teal season length. This historically has gone along with the teal season in those 16 days in September we are allowed to do... Since that’s nine days, that allows us seven additional days of opportunity. This is a 70-day season we’re allowed underneath Federal Frameworks, so we’re going to tack that seven days onto the back end of the season to allow a little bit more hunting opportunity on Rails and Gallinules in Texas.
And falconry seasons. It is going to allow us additional days for falconry seasons in the north and south zones with Rails and Gallinules. And so, this is Mr. Don Roeber, he’s worked with the department for a number of years on falconry regulations. So just a shout-out to him. They are going to get a little bit more opportunity with regards to this additional days we’re getting due to the reduction in teal season. And this was in “DU Nation.” This was on the TV show last year that he was showing falconry in Texas.
All right, moving on from those situations where we had to change seasons around proposals around due to teal seasons, Northern Pintail bag limits. We are proposing to change from one to three during the regular duck seasons and special seasons. Our new harvest strategy was implemented by all four Flyway Councils and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this last year. That allowed a maximum bag of three birds in the daily bag limit. With regards to where the population status sits underneath this new harvest strategy, we’re going to be allowed that during the ’25-26 hunting season.
So moving on from ducks, a special White-winged Dove area. We have a very odd calendar this year. Historically, we have allowed to maximize weekend opportunities here. We went from four days to six days a number of years ago, but the calendar this year with regards to opening the regular season as early as September 14, that falls on that Sunday, and we’re allowed six days. But the realization the only opportunity to put this day would be on Labor Day, and that creates some issues with regards to communities in the South Zone. About half of our hunters travel to the South Zone during the special White-winged Dove days. So, we get lots of commerce, lots of communities engaged there. This is an afternoon only season, so we would like to put two or three days back-to-back to allow us to extend that hunting opportunity.
Staff are proposing to reduce special White-winged Dove season from six to five days, and open that on the 5th, 6th and 7th, and then the 12th and 13th to maximize people to be able to travel to the South Zone for that hunting opportunity.
All right, we will move on to proposals to Statewide Hunting Proclamation. Through our technical guidance process in the Panhandle and our district staff, we did have a request from landowners to add Lubbock County to the Wild Turkey North Zone seasons. That would allow a fall and spring season and a four bird annual bag limit. When we look at our occupancy surveys that our staff complete, as you can see here, when– Lubbock is circled there– it is the only county basically in the Panhandle that has significant proportion occupied that we currently do not have a turkey season. After discussions both with the Technical and Advisory Committees, we don’t see a biological reason not to open Lubbock County to Turkey season for this next hunting season.
And the next staff proposal is the Statewide Hunting Proclamation with regards to Hill County. This is a clarification. As you know, you may recall we did do some changes to turkey seasons in counties in the past few years, one of those was Hill County. We divided the county east of I-35 and west of I-35 in the Texas Administrative Code. Unfortunately, above Hillsboro I-35 does split in the east and west. That clarification was not caught in TAC by staff, so we’re clarifying that it would follow I-35 to I-35 East, and that’s where the zone split would be with regards to Hill County in future years.
And then also, Mr. Chris Cerny brought this up earlier, we would propose amendments to clarify digital tagging requirements for wild turkey, White-tailed deer and Mule deer. So, before I turn it over to my colleague, Mr. Shawn Gray, the Mule Deer and Pronghorn Program Leader, are there any questions with regards to what I presented today?
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Any questions?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Patton. What is the current annual bag limit for turkey?
MR. OLDENBURGER: So, it all depends on the county. So, we have the East Zone, which is basically an April 1 to April 30 season, and that’s one gobbler. But then other counties have four. So, your annual bag limit statewide is only four.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay. So that’s not really a change then, is it?
MR. OLDENBURGER: For?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: I thought it looked like in one of your screens that you were changing the statewide annual bag limit to four, but it was four, wasn’t it?
MR. OLDENBURGER: So, with regards to Lubbock County…
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Oh, it’s only…
MR. OLDENBURGER: It’s only Lubbock County.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay.
MR. OLDENBURGER: So, we’re opening that up and that would have a four bird annual limit which would be consistent with the counties around it to the east and south.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: And then to clarify, on a digital tag does… there was some discussion earlier about, you know, you got to have a written tag on the animal, like a deer, but you wouldn’t need one, I guess, maybe on the Red fish. On the turkey, is just taking the picture and applying the digital tag enough, or do you have to take a number and put it on their leg or carcass?
MR. OLDENBURGER: I’m going to call up Mr. Chris Cerny so he can answer that question since he presented that information earlier.
MR. CERNY: Yes, sir. For the record, Chris Cerny. You do, or I’m sorry, digital tag holders are required to add a physical document of some sort to both deer and turkey when harvested. It’s simply the confirmation number that’s received on execution of that tag record, but that is required on turkey.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay, thank you. Then I’ve got another question. It may not particularly be relevant, because it wasn’t brought up, as it relates to this– and this may be a little self-serving, by the way but-– our quail season this year snuck up on me as ending, I believe, on February 23, is that right?
MR. OLDENBURGER: That’s correct.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Just for the record, I think that’s early. And I took the time to look at next year’s calendar, and it does appear the last day of February, which for some reason in my mind I always thought was the end of quail season, is on a Saturday. So, I guess I would like to put in my lobbying comment that for the ’26, into the 2025-26 quail season, I would like to see it, and I’m sure that I could garner some petition just from people that have called me asking, “why we’re closing early,” that February 28 be the end of our quail season.
Do you see any problem, or do you have any other comments, or when is the appropriate time that we set the end of the ’25-26 quail season?
MR. OLDENBURGER: So, a couple of thoughts just off the top of my head, would be quail season currently within Texas, we do have one of the more liberal quail seasons in the country, it opens October 26 this last year and as you said closes February 23. So, that’s a fair amount of opportunity. With regards to that, there’s been a lot of discussion and this is before I was in my position about the end of quail season about ten or 11 years ago with regards to the Upland Game and Advisory Committee. I believe there was some potential action that was brought forward to the Commission at that time if my memory recalls. So, that discussion could happen. From a staff point of view, you know, obviously most quail harvest does occur on private lands in Texas. That’s 99.999%. Those ranches that do offer quail hunting do manage their quail populations to a very high degree. They spend significant amounts of money to do that. From a staff perspective, just thinking biologically here, as you move forward and pass February, you know, for the most part we believe quail harvest populations come and go with regards to rainfall and habitat, but mostly it’s compensatory. We don’t see additive. But as you get closer into February and closer to the breeding season, especially in South Texas where those birds are breeding fairly early, you’ve got to think about the hens and them initiating nests and starting to reproduce, there have been concerns in the past from staff as far as moving that season farther down the road. But with regards to your direction, that’s something we can discuss internally and bring forward some information to you.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay, and to be clear, I certainly am not suggesting getting into March. But I am glad you brought up the fact that it opened in October. Again, I think looking to our advisory councils, you know, they have great input and, you know, boots on the ground kind of perspective. I’ll speak… personally, I think opening quail season in October or even early in November is counterproductive, counterintuitive. You get a lot of juvenile birds, you get hot weather, it’s getting hotter and hotter every year– I’m not trying to make another comment– dogs don’t perform as well, grass is still high. A lot of negatives for, you know, trying to quail hunt at the end of October and early November. I personally, again, think maybe working backwards from the last day of February is always going to be a pretty positive and consistent timeframe. But, in any event, when do we set next year’s dates?
MR. OLDENBURGER: Well, this Commission will set those dates technically in March. But I’m going to look to our legal folks as far as… since we’re not proposing here currently with regards to ’25-26 hunting season.
MR. JAMES MURPHY: For the record, James Murphy, General Counsel. That would be in this permission to publish item, Commissioner Patton. If this is something that the Commission would like us to look into, we certainly could look into that before it goes into the Texas Register. But changing in the quail seasons would be proposed for permission to publish here today and ultimately voted on in adoption in March.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: What is the date that we’re proposing?
MR. OLDENBURGER: No change is basically what the proposal would be from the staff.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: So, it would end on February 23 of ’26?
MR. OLDENBURGER: I would have to go back and look as far as calendar progression how that works out with opening day there in October and how many days that runs. But we could get that to you.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Any other questions?
I would confirm Commissioner Patton’s comments in that there is, in my experience, a limited amount of quail hunting early October in the October timeframe. And it’s historically, quail season has always been associated with a closure at the end of February. There’s symmetry, it’s common sense. We’ve heard a lot about common sense in the current inauguration. And so, I would really advocate, and let’s see what we can do in terms of… and I’m saying this without the scientific data, from a pragmatic hunter’s perspective. Most hunters would want this to go through the end of February. And clearly, I think willing to sacrifice on the front end if it’s all about, you know, a duration of a number of days of quail hunting. So, I would strongly suggest that we look at that for the proposal, and clearly what is scientific based.
I’m not going to shoot from the hip here, but from a pragmatic standpoint, later opening and closure at the end of February would really, I think, satisfy most hunters’ needs.
MR. OLDENBURGER: So, basically proposing it to run to the end of February would be the Commission’s request to publish that proposal?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: I would be proud to make that my request. If it requires a motion, I’m happy to make the motion.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Do we need to vote on it?
MR. MURPHY: Chairman, one recommendation here is if you would instruct staff to close at the end of February, we can include that in the proposal that’s sent to the Register for public comment. It would also give our advisory committee a chance to look at that as well, provide feedback, and that input could be presented to the Commission in March for an “up” or “down” vote.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Wonderful. I would instruct the staff to close quail season at the end of February. Thank you. Great.
Thank you, Commissioner, that was good comments. Thank you.
All right, any other questions, comments?
MR. OLDENBURGER: I will turn it over to Mr. Shawn Gray.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Okay great, thank you.
MR. SHAWN GRAY: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners. For the record, my name is Shawn Gray and I’m the Mule Deer and Pronghorn Program Leader. And today I’d like to seek approval to publish the proposed Mule deer hunting regulations in the Texas Register for public comment.
And there’s a cool picture of some Mule deer for you all. All right. This map illustrates our current Mule deer seasons in the state. The yellow- and blue-colored counties have a 16-day general season that starts the Saturday before Thanksgiving with the special archery season. The blue-colored counties in the Panhandle are where we have implemented a Mule deer antler restriction. And in the Trans-Pecos, the green-colored counties, we have a 17-day general season starting the Friday after Thanksgiving with a special archery season. The light green-colored county in the Trans-Pecos is Terrell County, and that is where we’ve been experimenting with the Mule deer antler restriction since 2022. The current statewide special archery season starts the Saturday closest to September 30 and runs for 35 consecutive days. All general seasons and the special archery season in all but three counties in the Trans-Pecos are buck only. Staff have received several requests over the last few years to increase the length of the special archery season and to consolidate the Managed Lands Deer Program, or MLDP, archery only and all weapons seasons for mule deer. The special archery season is 35 days, and staff would like to extend the Panhandle archery season from 35 to 56 consecutive days, and the Trans-Pecos season to from 35 to 62 days. These archery season extensions would end the day before each region’s general season starts. Because the Trans-Pecos general season starts six days after the Panhandle, the Trans-Pecos archery season would be six days longer.
The present mule deer MLDP seasons are an archery season which starts the Saturday closest to September 30 for 35 consecutive days, and any lawful means season which starts the first Saturday in November and runs through the last Sunday in January. Another potential regulation change would be to consolidate both mule deer MLDP seasons to allow for any lawful means from the Saturday closest to September 30th to the last Sunday in January. Staff believe these proposed changes will not have any negative biological impacts to the mule deer populations.
In addition, staff conducted an online opinion survey last fall to gauge constituent support on these potential Mule deer regulation changes. Generally, the survey recipients were hunters who bought hunting licenses in 2023 and resided in mule deer range or reported a deer harvest from 2021 to 2023, and, within mule deer range through the Texas Hunt & Fish app. Landowners in this survey were anyone who has participated in mule deer MLDP or has applied for antlerless mule deer program permits.
In total, 53,380 hunters and landowners were sent an online opinion survey by email invitation on September 10th, 2024, with two reminders seven to ten days apart. The response rate was 4.3%, which totaled 1,951 respondents.
The first question of the survey asked the respondents to define their association with mule deer. The choices were “hunter”, “landowner”, “manager” and “guide.” The majority of the respondents, 54%, said their association with mule deer was a “hunter,” and 25% of the respondents said they were a “landowner”, and only 5% as a “guide.”
In the opinion survey, we asked, “Would you support extending the current mule deer archery-only season in the Panhandle counties from 35 to 56 consecutive days starting from the Saturday closest to September 30th and ending the day before the general season begins?”
80% of all respondents and 83% of Panhandle respondents said they would support this change. We also asked, “Would you support extending the current mule deer archery-only season in the Trans-Pecos counties from 35 to 62 consecutive days starting the Saturday closest to September 30th and ending the day before the general season begins?” 75% of all respondents and 81% of Trans-Pecos respondents said they would support this change as well.
Lastly, we asked under mule deer MLDP, “Would you support consolidating the special archery season with any weapons season, which would allow for any lawful means to be used from the Saturday closest to September 30th through the last Sunday in January on properties participating in the mule deer MLD program?” About 70% of all respondents and over 70% of mule deer MLDP landowner respondents would support this change, too.
Again, staff believe extending the current special archery seasons and consolidating the MLDP mule deer seasons will not have any negative biological impacts to the mule deer populations. And with the positive feedback from the opinion survey, as well as support from the Mule Deer Advisory Committee and the Texas Wildlife Association Big Game Committee, staff would like permission to publish these proposed mule deer regulation changes in the Texas Register for public comment.
I’d be happy to address any questions that you may have at this time.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gray?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Patton. Would you go back to slide 24, I think.
MR. GRAY: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: I don’t think I… I may have missed it. What are you proposing here?
MR. GRAY: For the MLDP?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: The whole thing. I may have to catch up.
MR. GRAY: For MLDP, we would like to consolidate the archery season and the any weapons season to just one season, not have a special archery in the front. And so, it would start September 30th and run to the, the first Saturday closest to September 30th, and run to the last Sunday in January any weapons, not have a special archery season upfront.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: It’s just all the same?
MR. GRAY: Just all the same. It’s what we do for White-tailed deer for years.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay, I get that part, but MLDP runs much longer than that, right?
MR. GRAY: No, that’s the MLDP season. It runs up to the last Sunday in January.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Oh, okay. Okay.
MR. GRAY: And then we’re also asking… a couple of slides before that were to extend the current archery season that if you’re not on MLDP, you would have an extension of your archery seasons.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Consistent with what the MLDP would be?
MR. GRAY: No. Not even close.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Right. You’re back into the 17-day kind of window, right?
MR. GRAY: Yeah, you would butt up against that. We would end that special archery season the day before the general seasons would begin.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay. All right, thank you.
MR. GRAY: So, instead of 35 days, you would get 56 in the Panhandle and 62 in the Trans-Pecos.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: All right, everybody is onboard. Or a lot of people are onboard with this, right? An overwhelming majority, right?
MR. GRAY: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay, thank you.
MR. GRAY: Thank you so much.
COMMISSIONER ROWLING: So, the more restrictive seasons on mule deer, your last slide I think says there will be no biological impacts to these changes. What’s the history behind a much more restrictive season out there on mule deer versus a more liberal White-tailed season?
MR. GRAY: Great question. Thank you. So, first off, we have a lot fewer Mule deer in Texas than we do White-tailed deer. We have around 250,000 Mule deer– give or take drought, good years, bad years– versus, I don’t know, six million White-tailed deer, something like that. So, we’ve always, as a department… we’ve always been very conservative with our Mule deer resource. And even our landowners are very conservative as well. I don’t know, decades ago, we had like a three day, a five day, eight day, and now we’re at 16 days. And so, there’s a lot of history of being just conservative on Mule deer. And then, you know, they are a little bit more sensitive, obviously, to drought, those kinds of things. And even antlerless harvests. We do issue antlerless permits, but we’re very conservative on that, too.
COMMISSIONER ROWLING: Number of MLDP holders the way they manage their property, you’re not worried about?
MR. GRAY: No, there’s very few properties that we would be concerned about overpopulation on Mule deer. It’s mostly always buck issuance, like, I don’t know exactly, probably 50% to 60% or even higher, of those properties that we issue MLDP to are only buck.
COMMISSIONER ROWLING: Okay. Thanks.
MR. GRAY: You bet. Thank you for the question.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Any other questions?
I’ve got just a general one that applies to Mule deer and others. And that is, how much effort does the department make to terminate the season on the end of a weekend, on Sundays? Essentially begin them on a weekend and end them on a weekend? Comment on that. How much do we actually try to massage the dates so that hunters can get a maximum amount of hunting opportunities?
MR. GRAY: Yes, sir. From a Big Game standpoint, that’s how all of our seasons are set, except, like, MLDP is… White-tailed deer would be February 28th. That’s the only date that I know of that is off on weekends. From a Big Game stand point, that’s what we…
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: So, Mule deer, White-tail, all of those seasons end on a Sunday?
MR. ALAN CAIN: Yes. Alan Cain for the record. We try to maximize hunting opportunities so all those deer seasons end on weekends with the exception of archery season, and that ends the Friday before the general season starts, which is a Saturday. But they always close on a weekend, Sunday.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: And in our bird seasons, I mean, we just brought up this notion of extending quail season through the end of February, but then that puts you on a Friday. And so, not ideal in terms of when one closes the season. I would just ask that we at least look into the notion, both from bird hunting, big game hunting, that we try to do everything that we can, Alan, to nuance these into opening on a Saturday morning and closing on a Sunday afternoon to maximize the opportunity for the citizens of the state of Texas to enjoy the resource. I mean, it just makes practical sense.
MR. ALAN CAIN: We can certainly look into doing that, and align quail season…
MR. OLDENBURGER: For the record, Shaun Oldenburger, Small Game Program Director. For a little background as far as migratory game bird hunting seasons, we’ve always tried to maximize our weekend opportunities.
When you look at harvest data, those Saturdays and Sundays are going to jump out compared to a Monday or a Wednesday, right? And then you maybe trickle up Thursday and Friday. We always see that, especially for dove seasons.
Dove hunters are mostly weekend guys and gals going out there so that you see those huge spikes on that. For turkey seasons, we’ve done that a little bit different in the past. And the realization we did that is because we actually have some data showing initiation dates for hens on some projects the department worked with universities on. And so, the realization that a calendar progression can plus or minus six days, right? And so, you are always kind of flipping that.
We have some hardcore data that shows when turkeys are initiating nests, and we try to maximize that resource and have the greatest amount of hens nesting. So that’s why we have some turkey seasons, for instance in the East Zone opening April 1 and run to the 30th. There are some other ones where we’ve actually started other days, too, because of data that we’ve collected as a department showing when we can maximize hens on nests.
MR. CAIN: We’ll look into maximizing closure on the weekends to maximize the dates.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great. I mean, look, we’re here for the state of Texas and this is what we do. And so, let’s be a bit pliable in terms of... instead of closing… because now everyone’s… there’s no more work from home, and so people will be working during Monday through Friday at the office, they only have the weekend. I assume that happens here at the department, correct? Monday through Friday, correct? Right? Dr. Yoskowitz?
DR. YOSKOWITZ: Correct.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Okay. All right. So, anyway, let’s maximize it for the State of Texas.
MR. CAIN: And it simplifies rules if you have standardized.
COMMISSIONER HILDEBRAND: Yes, absolutely.
MR. CAIN: We’ll do our best to make that work.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great. Thank you very much. Okay.
MR. GRAY: Thank you, all.
COMMISSIONER HILDEBRAND: If there are no further questions, I’ll authorize staff to publish the rules in the Texas Register.
All right. Mr. Cain, you’re going to earn your salary here.
Work Session Item #11, Chronic Wasting Disease Detection and Response Rules, Recommended Adoption of Proposed Changes.
Mr. Cain, please make your presentation.
MR. ALAN CAIN: For the record, I’m Alan Cain, Wildlife Division Director.
This morning, I’ll present proposed amendments to rules governing the Chronic Wasting Disease Response and Management, deer breeder facility standards, and changes to management efforts that will enable the removal of CWD zones and seek permission to place this item on tomorrow’s agenda for action.
This is a long presentation, so, y’all bear with me. We’ll try to get through it and then answer questions.
Since the first detection of CWD in Texas in 2012, the department established zones to help manage CWD as well as inform hunters and landowners where it is present in Texas. The core management actions associated with zones include rules restricting live animal movements and carcass movements, as well as mandatory testing on hunter-harvested deer to monitor for disease, distribution, and prevalence. Over the last decade, as the number of detections increased and the department continued to add zones– currently, we have nine containment zones and 26 surveillance zones, as well as additional detections that don’t have zones in place at the moment. And over that decade, the department has continued to adapt its CWD management approach utilizing new tools and testing requirements that improve our ability to detect the disease earlier and reduce spread to new areas.
Some of those changes include implementing testing standards for deer breeding facilities that now include 100% testing of all mortalities in the facilities, as well as live anal testing all breeder deer prior to transfer, enhanced testing standards for trace breeder facilities and release sites, and adoption of statewide carcass disposal rules.
So, those changes that I just mentioned, as well as the proposed changes I will present today, will enable the department to eliminate CWD zones, remove burdens on landowners and hunters that have been impacted by zones which currently encompass about 12 million acres, and provide expanded business opportunities for deer breeders while ensuring practical and effective science-based measures that are in place to minimize the risk of CWD spreading to new areas, whether that’s in another captive facility or free-ranging populations.
You know, with this proposal, the department seeks to prioritize long-term solutions that foster trust and strengthen collaboration and build long-term partnerships with landowners, hunters, deer breeders and other stakeholders. Their support is essential for effective management of this disease across the state. So, to mitigate disease risk while eliminating zones, the department proposes the following rules. And I kind of break those up into categories, and they include: repeal of zones; carcass disposal modifications; requirements for deer breeder facilities and release sites; proximity rules for live animal movements from areas where CWD is known to exist; and enhanced rules for positive breeding facilities; and additional rules for epidemiologically linked breeder facilities. So, I’ll go over each of these in more detail starting with the carcass disposal rules.
As you may recall, this Commission adopted statewide carcass disposal rules this past May in 2024, requiring hunter harvested deer in Texas be disposed of in one of the three ways that include disposal of the landfill, which is simply putting the unused carcass parts in a dumpster or your local trash service to go to landfill. And hunters can still take their deer to processors or taxidermists who would then be responsible for proper disposal using one of those methods on the screen. Burial is another option if you didn’t dispose of it in the landfill. And lastly, unused parts may also be returned to the site of harvest or the property of harvest. And part of that rule package in May with the carcass disposal was to allow hunters to debone carcasses at the site of harvest.
So, after evaluating feedback from this full hunting season under the current carcass disposal rules, the department proposes the following changes. One, we would align out of state carcass movement restriction rules to match in-state carcass disposal rules. This simplifies the rules for all hunters by requiring the same disposal practice for unused carcass parts regardless of their origin. Simplifying of the rules is always a key priority when feasible. Next, the proposed allow deboning at a location beyond the property of harvest to accommodate hunters that debone carcasses at other common locations where they may process their deer. They could do that provided proper disposal of those unused parts occurs. Again, this is another example of a rule simplification based on hunter input and better reflects real-world scenarios while maintaining disposal method requirements. We would also like to clarify that unused parts must be contained until they are properly disposed of, and burial of unused parts is a chosen method of disposal, and it must occur immediately. In other words, you couldn’t throw unused parts in a pit and leave it open until the end of the season. You would need to cover it.
So, these last two bullet points are really to prevent scavengers from scattering those unused parts across the landscape. And lastly, rendering carcass parts will no longer be allowed as a legal means of disposal.
The next bucket is a proposed rules which pertains to deer breeder facilities and release site standards, which I’ll describe in the next few slides. So, to further mitigate the risk of CWD spreading across the landscape, the department proposes requiring a double fence around all new deer breeding facilities, or facilities requiring a double fence for other purposes that I’ll address later in the presentation. The double fence is a commonsense practice to eliminate nose-to-nose contact between deer in the breeder facility and deer in the free-range pasture outside of that facility. The illustration on that slide shows an example of what a double fenced might facility looks like. The green square represents the ranch, Ranch A, and it surrounds the breeder facility which is everything in gray within that black square there. And the breeder facility includes everything inside of it, which is the breeder pens in yellow, the working barns shown in red, and the alleyways, or just that open space in that gray area.
I will note that under current rule that no hunting or other activities can occur within a breeder facility, so that area inside that perimeter of the double fence can occur there that’s not allowed by a breeder permit. So, because that rule’s in place, it essentially prevents somebody from claiming that the ranch’s entire border fence be used as a fence. The fence has to be around that facility and everything in there is part of that facility.
The proposed standards for the double fence include the following requirements: a seven foot high net wiring fence that completely surrounds the breeder facilities, including the pens, alleyways, open space and associated facilities, including the working barns. And there are some caveats for the working barns. I’ll address that here in just a minute.
And the breeder facility perimeter fence, that double fence, must be at least five feet from any pen or structure within the permitted breeding facility that can hold deer. Again, to prevent that nose-to-nose contact. So, additionally, we proposed that no food or water can be in the open area outside of the pens and the working barn. So, no food or water in those pens or the working barn, I’m sorry, in that gray buffer area that we’re referring to there.
Additionally, the buffer area may be used for moving deer between pens, provided someone was present and actively moving those deer from pen to pen down the alleyway, and no animals may be held or kept in the buffer area. In other words, we don’t want deer sitting in that buffer area for a day, two days, three days, where they can potentially have nose-to-nose contact with the deer outside of that.
Additionally, non-susceptible species may be handled in the working barns but cannot be commingled with breeder deer in that facility. For existing facilities, non-susceptible species may be moved down an alleyway, or through that buffer area on the screen, directly to the working barn to temporarily handle those non-susceptible species. Language clarifying that the non-susceptible species may access the working barn through an alleyway or that open space was inadvertently left out of the proposal that was published in the “Register.” Therefore, staff are recommending adding that clarifying language at the time of adoption and it would just state that you could move those non-susceptible species down the alleyway for existing facilities. And then, all new breeder facilities that want to work non-susceptible species in a working barn would be required to have a way for those non-susceptible species to access a working barn externally to the pens and not have to go through an alleyway to the working barn that’s part of that permitted facility. And lastly, there’s no maximum distance between the double fence, or that perimeter fence of the breeder facility to the pens which would allow for the future expansion of existing facilities and provide for different scenarios that may exist for breeder facilities that are already double fence. Because some of them might be ten feet, 100 feet, and so we just need to be able to accommodate those.
After the November Commission meeting, additional feedback was received regarding the double fence in relation to a working barn. Specifically, some breeder facility owners recommended a proposal be modified to accommodate scenarios where the working barn would serve as part of that double fence, so to speak, and rather than being fully enclosed within it, as described in the November proposal or on the illustration I just provided on the previous slide. So, to address this request, the proposal was modified slightly to allow working barns to service part of that double fence, provided the double fence itself abuts the working barn and then the working barn is secured when not in use to prevent access by animals outside of that breeder facility.
These adjustments ensures the working barn can function effectively while still meeting the intent of the rule to prevent that nose-to-nose contact between deer in the facility and free-rangedeer in the pasture.
And just the photo on the slide provides an example of this configuration. You could see the double fence abuts the working barn and then it would be secured if it’s not in use. And again, lastly, we acknowledge that there needs to be some clarification to the rule language that was not explicitly stated in the proposal that went to the Register. So, again, we recommend a modern modification to that language to address this at the time of adoption.
The department has also identified concerns with scenarios where two distinct permitted deer breeding facilities share a single working barn, as illustrated on the slide. Sharing a working barn poses a risk of disease transmission due to potential environmental contamination within that shared working barn. So, in this example, if Facility 2 has a positive deer, which is shown in red, and that deer and other deer were handled in that working barn, then prions from that positive deer could have been shared in that working barn potentially exposing any deer from Facility 1 that may also be handled in that working barn. In such cases, if one facility has a confirmed positive then both facilities would be placed under a quarantine and treated as a single epidemiological facility due to that shared exposure. Due to the risk of exposure, the department proposes amendments to deer breeder facility standards to require all working barns and other facilities be exclusive to a single permitted breeder facility and prohibit the shared use of the working barn between separate permitted deer breeding facilities.
Again, the measure is intended to prevent disease transmission and minimize the occurrence of potential epi-linked facilities.
Under current rules, two distinct permitted breeder facilities can be fence line adjacent, as illustrated on the diagram on the slide. Again, these arrangements pose significant exposure risk through that nose-to-nose contact, shared equipment or environmental contamination, again resulting in both facilities considered as a single facility from an epidemiological disease management perspective. And again, for instance, if Facility 2, which is in orange, has a positive deer, denoted in red, there’s a high likelihood of exposure between the deer in the two facilities either through direct nose-to-nose contact, contact with the contaminated surfaces, and in such cases, both facilities again would be placed under quarantine due to potential exposure to the positive deer or trace deer moving between those facilities or just being fence-line adjacent.
This is just a bad business practice for two distinct permitted facilities to share common fence lines and create unnecessary disease transmission risks. So, the department proposes to require the state permitted breeder facilities to be separated by a minimum of ten feet. Again, this is to prevent nose-to-nose contact between those facilities, reduce the potential of disease transmission, and to prevent both facilities from being locked down because of a trace or CWD positive detection in one facility or the other. The department is also proposing rules that would stipulate the enforcement of Visible Identification requirements as currently outlined in the statute for all breeder deer. Those tagging requirements include a form of electronic identification that must be either a microchip or a RFID 840 button tag and a tattoo for any deer transferred from the facility it was born in, and an ear tag with the unique ID displayed on that tag. Currently, you have to have one of the forms of the electronic ID, tattoo, and then the ear tag. That illustration, those photos show the examples of those particular identification methods.
The release breeder deer with visible identification would aid in accelerating the speed in which epidemiological trace scenarios, or investigations, can be cleared by locating and testing those animals in the pasture if they are available. Further, it provides neighboring landowners greater assurances that escaped animals can be more easily identified on their property. And inclusion of Visible ID on released deer has been, and continues to be, a contentious issue among stakeholders, obviously. And the department has continued to work with groups to build consensus as it pertains to this topic.
Next, the department’s proposing a requirement for new breeder facilities and newly registered release sites following the effective date of this rule should it be adopted. And that’s to have a fence inspection completed by a facility inspector, a pen inspector, to verify that the breeder facilities meet the double fence standards that we just talked about, and that all new release sites meet the fencing standards as required in rule. For release sites, those standards would be a seven-foot fence of welded, mesh wire chain link fence capable of retaining those released deer. And the fence inspectors would meet the same standards required by current rules for persons conducting deer breeder facility inspections for new deer breeder pens and applications. Currently, we have about 65 of those facility inspectors that handle that right now.
The next bucket that I’ll discuss pertains to proximity rules for live animal movement. So, if zones are removed, the department must establish rules to manage the movement of live animals within a specified distance of a free range CWD detection. In other words, that high-risk area there. Currently deer breeder facilities within containment zones are limited to releasing deer on release sites within that containment zone, as illustrated on the slide. So that red circle is the containment zone, the blue rectangle is the breeder facility, and the yellow arrow signifies the release of deer to the release site within that containment zone. That’s how that currently works. Over the last year, the department has received requests to provide provisions to allow deer breeders within a containment zone to move deer to release sites or other breeder facilities outside of the containment zone. In other words, statewide movement for those facilities.
In order to facilitate this request, nn the absence of zones, the department must ensure standards are in place to mitigate potential risk of moving deer from areas where CWD is known to occur to other areas where CWD may not be present or has not been detected. Currently, the size of containment zone boundaries is based on the average dispersal distance of a year-and-a-half old buck. For White-tails, that’s about five miles and 25 miles for Mule deer.
So, the next few slides will describe proposed rules for deer breeders to move deer within or beyond that distance of five miles or 25 miles for the free-range positive, five miles for White-tailed or susceptible species such as elk, 25 miles for Mule deer.
So, I just put this up here so that the proximity rules discussed could be considered in the context of those distances.
And that gives you… the map on the slide kind of gives you an illustration of kind of the scale of what that might look like in comparison to each other. For a deer breeder facility within five or 25 miles of free range CWD detection– and that facility can release deer to an adjacent release site or a release site that’s authorized to receive deer within that five or 25 mile distance of free range detection– no additional requirements outside the current rules governing movement qualified status are necessary. So, essentially, that diagram just illustrates that breeder deer in that facility on Ranch A can be released onto the Ranch A itself, the adjacent release site or within the other release site within that proximity distance for the free-range detection. Again, no additional requirements. It’s business as usual as long as they’re movement qualified. In this scenario, assuming the deer breeder is located within that proximity distance of a free range detection, is movement qualified at the time that detection occurs in the free range, that facility may transfer deer outside of the proximity area to other breeder facilities or release sites.
Again, so we’re talking about transferring stuff statewide here.
That breeder facility has been double fenced for at least one year prior to the detection of the free range and using those double standards I just described earlier. And the facility has completed one whole herd of antemortem test, a live animal test, which may be initiated immediately upon detection of that free range detection because that double fence has been in place for up to a year or more. So, essentially, if you’ve been double fenced a year or more, once that detection occurs all you have to do is a whole herd live animal test. Likewise, facilities that have been double fenced for less than one year prior to detection and would like to be qualified to move deer outside of that proximity area, so again, statewide, that facility must wait one year following the date of completion of the double fence to complete a whole herd test, wait another year after completing the whole herd test to be able to move deer and be movement qualified at the time they are able to move those deer. And I’ll just note that each individual deer to be transferred will have to be antemortem tested prior to movement. So after they met their one-year waiting period, after that initial herd test, it’s just business as usual. They don’t have to conduct an antemortem test on that deer before it moves.
Noting there may be some special circumstances for a few deer breeders currently in containment zones that are already double fenced and movement qualified, the department is proposing to allow breeder facilities that are in containment zones at this time the rule becomes effective if adopted to transfer deer statewide. This proposed amendment would be applicable to very few deer breeders. In fact, there’s only three that would be in a containment zone. And if they meet those requirements, they can move those deer. Currently, the department is required to issue deer breeder permits per statute, but the current CWD zone rules permit those facilities to hold zero deer. The department is proposing to issue new deer breeder permits to applicants within this proximity distance of a free range detection as required by statute, and allow for them to hold and move deer provided certain requirements are met.
In order to possess and move deer, the applicant would need to have a site assessment completed to determine the possible exposure of CWD prions at that site where the pens were built using a department approved methodology.
And that may be something like RT-QuIC or PMCA, these application techniques where we might be able to sample the environment, or it can be other new technologies that are emerging, or maybe just a significant amount of testing on their part, something to give us confidence that the disease is not out there, the prions are not out there on that site where the pen is to be built. And the applicant will also need to submit a facility diagram prior to creation of the new pens, and the facility would need to be double fenced if it’s approved. And so, for new facilities that only intend to release deer within that five or 25 mile proximity distance, they would only need to meet the current movement-qualified standards. So, no additional changes basically to release into that same area. For those breeder facilities that would like to move deer statewide, so again, beyond that proximity distance, they would have to comply with the following standards which include: all deer must have a 20-month residency for a period of three years beginning after the first introduction of deer to the new facility. And after that three-year period, the resident’s requirements may be waived or the department may provide additional surveillance to assess disease risk prior to removing the 20 month resident requirement. So, deer to be moved prior to that residency requirement must have an antemortem test after the residency requirement is met and prior to movement. Just a reminder, all new deer coming into this new facility are going to have an antemortem, not-detected test coming into this facility. The residential requirements are to give us confidence that the disease wasn’t there, and we’re able to detect that after that 20-month residency.
We’re also proposing to prohibit the expansion of existing deer breeding facilities within the proximity distance talked about to prevent potential exposure of deer to contaminated environments. And so, if you had an existing pen, what we’re saying is, you can’t grow that pen bigger just because now you’re exposing deer in your facility to the dirt outside of it that could potentially be exposed to prions.
The proposal would allow formerly closed facilities that are reopened to meet the same standards for a new facility that I just mentioned. And lastly, we would propose a new facilities on positive properties would be permitted for zero deer, unless determined by the department that CWD is no longer present. Just a common sense practice that if this is a positive property then permit the facility, but to hold zero deer. The department also proposes to allow for the issuance of deer management permits on properties within the proximity distance provided that the landowner submits not-detected CWD tests for 100% of hunter-harvested deer up to a maximum of 15 deer during the season for which the DNP is issued. If no harvest occurs in that season, the permittee must submit 25 not-detected tests prior issuance of a new deer management permit in subsequent seasons. Additionally, if tests are missed during the season, for example, I harvest 10 deer but only tested five, then a new DMP permit wouldn’t be issued until the balance of those tests are made up after some subsequent date. The landowner would also be required to submit a harvest log to the department just so we could match up harvest and test requirements. And lastly, the proposal would prohibit the issuance of deer management permits on epi-linked or trace release sites.
The next bucket of… the next category I’ll be discussing pertains to proposals regarding CWD positive breeder facilities. Before moving on to the proposal, again, I want to take a few minutes to walk through the diagram that illustrates the common examples and terminologies used to describe breeder facilities or release sites that are connected to CWD positive facilities. We went over this in November, but I think it’s good to refresh for everybody as well as the audience. So, I’ll refer to some of these terms and examples in the next few slides regarding the next few proposals So, starting on the upper left, you have Facility 1. This is referred to as a trace-in and breeder facility because that facility sent deer to a positive facility within a five-year period prior to detection in the positive facility, which is Facility 2. The deer in blue represent trace-in deer and were sent from Facility 1 to Facility 2. The trace-in deer could be the source of CWD introduction into Facility 2 and are of interest from an epidemiological investigation. Facility 2 is a positive facility, again, the positive deer are denoted in red. And the positive facility in this example could have sent deer to another breeding facility or a release site within that five-year period prior to detection in the positive facility. So, those facilities are referred to as “trace-out” breeder facilities, again Facility 3 or a trace-out release site, which is the Ranch A. The yellow deer are trace-out deer and are deer from the positive facility number 2 that were transferred to Facility 3 of the release site and were possibly exposed while in the positive facility. So, in some instance, these trace deer sent out to release site are not available for testing for a lot of reasons, including harvest, they died out there, you just can’t find them, or just unable to find them in the pasture in general.
Traces, both trace-in and trace-out, are also referred to as epidemiologically linked, or “epi-linked,” when referring to specific deer facilities that I just described.
I hope that diagram provides some explanation of what I’ll talk about in the next few proposals. So, these proposed amendments pertain to risk mitigation for positive breeding facilities. And first is a requirement to euthanize and post-mortem test all trace-in deer in positive facilities within seven days of confirmation. This will be a tremendous help in freeing up trace-in breeder facilities that would otherwise become not movement qualified because the traced deer they sent to the positive facility has not been removed and tested. So, in some instances, these trace-in breeder facilities remain not-movement qualified for months because the trace deer remain alive in that positive facility. So, they’re holding there and tying up the tracing facility. So, it’s not until that positive facility euthanizes and tests those deer and returns a not-detected result that we can clear up those trace-in facilities.
Second, in order to expedite an epidemiological review of positive facilities, the department proposes those positive facilities submit a pen-by-pen inventory within 14 days of confirmation, including the location of the positive pen.
And third, movement between pens in the facility will be prohibited unless authorized by the department. And again, this would help prevent unnecessary exposure or potential spread to other deer in that facility and hopefully offer some flexibility and options moving forward for that particular facility. And lastly, the department proposes that positive facilities sign a herd plan within six months of detection or agree to depopulation. The intent behind this proposal is to expedite CWD mitigation measures through a herd plan. Those facilities that choose an option that does not include depopulation will be required to double fence their facility by the time they satisfactorily complete the herd plan or removal of the quarantine.
Again, by trying to usher in this expedited herd plan signing, or some path forward, it allows some flexibility, and hopefully options so the disease isn’t sitting there cooking the pen creating bigger problems. But we have options for folks if they choose to try to mitigate this disease quicker.
The last bucket of proposals pertains to epi-linked breeder facilities, again, these are trace-in or trace-out facilities I was referring to in the earlier diagram. The next proposal includes several changes for trace-out breeder facilities in which some or all the trace deer are not available for testing. These trace-out facilities are currently called Category B facilities when all trace deer are not available for testing. This proposal would return the trace-out breeder facility back to movement-qualified status if the following standards are met: one, at least one trace deer has to be available for testing; and then available trace deer if they are still in those facilities will need to be post mortem tested and returned a not-detected result; the trace deer must have been received three to five years prior to detection in that positive facility; the trace deer had at least one antemortem test within the last five years; the trace-out facility is double fenced; and the trace-out facility has been compliant with all rules for at least two years prior to becoming a trace.
The proposed amendment on this slide would allow for trace-out breeder facilities in that zero-to-three-year trace period to be returned to movement-qualified status and have that trace designation removed if the following standards are met. First, the trace-out breeder facility must be double fenced prior to designations of a trace. The facility must achieve 25% annual testing for at least two years prior to the designation of the trace and using a combination of post-mortem and antemortem test. The breeder facility must be in compliance with the permit rules, the breeder permit rules, for two years prior to being designated as a trace. And the trace-in facility must have 20-month residency in the trace-out facility and have antemortem rectal tests that occurs after that residence requirement is met.
So, this concludes the proposals that we went over. But I do want to note something. During the last Commission meeting, I think that several of you and some others had questions about penalties associated with the violations of certain rules with this proposal. Just for clarification, penalties are set by statute. And the vast majority of violations of TPWD regulations will be a Class C misdemeanor. And so, examples of those violations of certain provisions of this proposal are included on the slide… some of the more common ones you might expect is failure to abide by carcass disposal rules, violation of visible ID requirements or violation of fence inspection standards or requirements.
Next, I’ll review the public comment and feedback we received from the various groups about the proposal. The department has presented this proposal to various advisory committees and received the feedback from each of these groups. The CWD Taskforce was supportive of the proposed change to remove CWD zones and the proposal pertaining to carcass disposal rules, the double fencing of new breeder facilities, separation of distinct permitted breeder facilities and no-shared working barns, the requirements of the CWD positive breeding facilities that were proposed.
And there were varying perspectives in support or opposition of certain proximity rule requirements, including concerns of the whole herd test requirements for facilities that have been double fenced greater than one year to be able to move deer, or having to whole herd test for large herds. And some have suggested that a percentage of the herd to be tested. Some members suggested a one-year wait period after the initial whole herd test before movement for even those facilities who have been double tested for more than a year. There was also some disagreement on Visible ID requirements. Some supported the requirements as a means to identify trace deer on release sites, the ability of the neighbors to identify deer should they escape that release site. Others opposed the Visible ID noting that ID requirements should be addressed by the state legislature. It should be the choice of the release site owner whether the Visible ID is retained. And noting that breeder deer have been tested prior to release and many have already released deer with Visible IDs as a common practice. So, it shouldn’t be necessary to change. Some also had concerns with the possible risk regarding curtailing Category B trace status for certain facilities. Similar to the CWD Taskforce, the White-Tailed Deer Advisory Committee was supportive of the removal of CWD zones and proposals pertaining to carcass disposal rules, double fencing of new breeder facilities, separation of distinct permitted breeder facilities, no shared working barns and requirements for CWD positive breeder facilities.
I will note that the White-Tailed Deer Advisory Committee recommended that the breeder pen maximum size of 100 acres be reduced to something much smaller, which should help to aid in recovery and testing mortalities in the pen and accounting for deer inventories. It’s a great recommendation, but that would require statutory changes in the Legislature, but I did want to make the Commission aware of that.
There was mixed support in opposition for several of the proposed changes. Again, the Visible ID for some of the same reasons I mentioned for the CWD Taskforce. And there was also some discussion concerning the retention rates of the ear tags and possibly being dislodged after release. And then a better option might be a minimum standard, or at least a choice, of an RFID button tag as a Visible ID.
Additionally, there were discussions and suggestions in the White-tailed Deer Advisory Committee that tattoos be required in fawns by March 31 following their birth year to enhance tattoo quality and ultimately readability and retention. However, the tag size requirements for RFID button tags and date tattoos need to be in place will be statutory changes to be handled to the Legislature. Again, I just wanted to keep you all apprised of the discussions. There was also disagreement with the proposed release site fencing inspections. Several noted the concern for the cost burden to release sites and landowners. Some were concerned that we can have a bottleneck with a limited number of fence inspectors. And others noted that the TWIMS system which we use to register release sites already requires the acknowledgement of fence requirements by release site owners; therefore, this isn’t needed.
But others, on the other hand, noted the need for fence inspections to address fraudulent scenarios where landowners may create a fictitious release site or registered release site that is not completely fenced.
There was also some opposition to that proximity rule requirements for breeder facilities that have been with a fence greater than one year and having a whole herd test. And again, some suggested custom evaluations for facilities, especially for those large facilities with lots of deer in there where they have a significant past testing history. Could that be considered?
Lastly, there was recommendations for many on the Committee to remove the requirement prohibiting DMP within that proximity distance from trace-out proximity distance from a free-range detection or a trace-out. As noted, the department did include the proposal to allow DMPs within that proximity distance of free-range detection.
The department also met with a Private Lands Advisory Committee in October and November to discuss a proposal. Although not unanimous, a consensus was reached among the majority of the members of the Private Lands Advisory Committee. And a letter was provided to this commission and the department noting the plaque support for elimination of the zones, the development rules minimizing impacts of CWD detection on neighboring landowners and mitigating the risk of disease spread. So, key elements from the letter include support for Visible ID, support for release site fence inspections with the suggestion that required fence inspections prior to any release and a suggestion that they require a mandatory release site testing. Those signing onto the letter had additional concerns regarding the movement of deer in proximity to CWD detections and the curtailment of Category B trace status. Several other individual members that did not sign the letter or abstained from comment had concerns with the portion of the proposal about the cost associated with the fence inspection for release sites and other impacts on deer breeders or release sites.
And so, to date, we received a lot of comments. I think it’s up to 1,800 as of a few hours ago. Although, the slide may not reflect that. Anyway, we’ve had about 15% support the proposal, 85% that disagree completely or with specific items in the proposal. Comments supporting the proposal reference the need for Visible ID for reasons talked about a minute ago. There was support for removal of the zones that impacted landowners and hunters. Reasons for disagreement include Visible ID, noting that release site owners should have the choice or Visible ID should be addressed with the Legislature. Others had concerns with fence inspections being burdensome or the double fence requirements. There were concerns over proximity rules targeting deer breeders and saying this is essentially a zone.
I just want to remind the Commission and folks in the audience that the proximity… the proposed proximity rules enable expanded business opportunities for breeders that otherwise would not have under current zone rules. Right now, they could only release within the zone. The rules we are proposing allows them the flexibility to move outside of that zone statewide provided certain standards are met to minimize risk and also to incentivize management practices for those facilities, such as double fencing.
Other reasons for disagreement were prohibiting DMP pens on trace release sites. There was also concern for whole herd testing for facilities in the proximity distance, especially those that have been fenced greater than one year. There were concerns over the reliability of the antemortem test or that the antemortem test on individual deer should be used or be considered as a hard barrier. There was also concerns that this proposal– these really are not germane, but I’ll mention them anyway– that these proposals are adding more rules to deer breeders, creating more burdens, and the perception that they are trying to end deer breeding, and the rules will impact the hunting economy and deer breeding.
I will note that the department also received a comment from The Nature Conservancy in support of the proposal to move away from zones or zone-based strategy to an adapted focus, or an adapted strategy that focuses on risk-based management where the disease has been detected. It also eliminates the need to seek rule making from you guys every time we have a CWD detection. I’ll also note that we received a letter from Representative Drew Darby this morning. I believe you have a copy of that. He’s supportive of the rules, and it’s something that he asked the department to look into and try to accomplish back in our meetings in Coleman County. So, we are glad to bring the proposal forward to you.
The department has received letters from The Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society. They are generally supportive of the proposal but offer cautious concern regarding proposed rules that would allow movement of breeder deer from facilities within the proximity of a free-range detection. The department has also received a letter of support from The Texas Conservation Alliance, as well as The Texas Foundation for Conservation. And they noted that the proposal is an important step to slow the spread of disease. They also noted that not to be concerned about opposition of public comment because there has been an email campaign launched to garner opposition to the proposal. The Texas and Southwest Cattle Raisers Association also provided a letter specifically supporting the repeal of the zones as a step in the right direction, and it also ensures a more targeted and science-based approach to CWD management. And they were also supportive of the carcass disposal rules and the Visible ID.
We also just received a letter from Senator Bob Hall and several other representatives, Richard Raymond, Representative Wes Virdell and Representative Pat Curry. Without reading them, I’m assuming there are some concerns about this, the rule package. But I just wanted to make y’all aware of that. I’m sure that you have a copy.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: We do.
MR. CAIN: Therefore, with all that being said, staff requests this item be placed on Thursday’s agenda for public comment and action. And I’ll be happy to answer any questions.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Okay. Any questions by the Commission to Mr. Cain?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Patton. Alan, the 25-mile rule, that’s specific to Mule deer?
MR. CAIN: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: And, therefore, Mule deer breeders, is that right?
MR. CAIN: The rule applies to any deer breeder. The 25 miles relates to a free-range detection. In other words, say, I’m a…
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Wait, hold on. There’s no Mule deer breeders, right?
MR. CAIN: I think we have a couple of breeders permitted to have Mule deer. I’m not sure if they have deer in their pens.
There may be a few in the Trans-Pecos or maybe one in the Panhandle but very few.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay, so go back to clarify for me the 25…
So, it’s a free-range detection?
MR. CAIN: Yes, so what it is, and I’ll give you an example…
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: It would have to be a deer breeder within the 25…
MR. CAIN: They would be impacted. So, here’s an example.
If I owned a ranch in Roberts County and I have a breeder facility on there, which we had a recent detection this fall in the Panhandle, and I had a breeder facility and I was raising deer, doesn’t matter if it’s White-tailed or Mule deer. It’s just that I have a deer breeder facility and I’m within that 25-mile distance or proximity of that free-range detection, I would be subject to the proximity rules. Especially if I want to move statewide, then I have to meet those standards. If I’m just releasing within that 25-mile proximity distance of my own place or another release site there, then it’s just standard movement qualified.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay. Going to your, I think, slide 26, having to do with the MLDP.
MR. CAIN: The Deer Management Permit, the DMP?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay, so, it’s Deer Management, DMP pens.
All right. By nature of that permit, a DMP pen is only going to be granted adjacent to or contiguous with a high fence release area, correct?
MR. CAIN: Correct, current rules require all DMPs to be on a high fence property.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: And a DMP holder may have multiple DMP pens, or several different permitted areas within one ranch. But if there were two DMP, separate DMP permits, you would need up to 15 for each one.
MR. CAIN: Right, so, what you’re talking about is I have a ranch and it’s divided into two high fence pastures and I have a DMP in each one, yes, you would need 15 tests in each pasture.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Got it. And my last… I guess this is more a comment than a question. Certainly happy… It seems like… I mean well done. There has been a lot of work here, collaborative, both sides of the aisle type work, and certainly don’t want to do anything to get in the middle of that progress. But you know one of the collateral damages, you know, took a quick bullet to the head, was the TTT program that I felt like was a very successful program within the state of Texas and that Parks and Wildlife did. And it just, despite the fact there were never any positive CWD tests, it just disappeared, vaporized. I certainly hope– not part of this one, but in the future, we could look back at Triple T. There are a lot of people out there that want to improve the genetics of their herd or manage their herd within their own ranch, and they don’t want to look to the scientific breeder deer, but they want the deer that come with Triple T. And I certainly hope Parks and Wildlife can look at bringing that back.
MR. CAIN: It’s something that we’ll discuss. It’s been brought up in the White-Tailed Deer Advisory Committee several times. And to your point, I’m hearing it from a lot of landowners. Obviously, there would have to be some standards in place. But it’s something we could start to investigate and figure out how to do that.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Other questions?
VICE-CHAIRMAN BELL: Commissioner Bell. Just a comment. There has been an incredible amount of work that has gone into that. And I know that I will say this, probably not depending on what someone’s point of view is, maybe everyone is not completely happy with the set of standards from their particular perspective. But, I do believe that we’ve achieved some level of balance in being able to live with this. And also, we’ve created an opportunity, as you said, where in the past your breeders may have been closed down completely. There is an opportunity for them to continue to operate. But also, we’ve created some opportunity for landowners so they do not necessarily have to be threatened by the disease, and know that the process… is we’re making every effort to try to actively manage the process without restricting people unreasonably, but without creating so much freedom that we put things at risk. So, it’s a tough balance to strike, and I know that our vet staff has worked with you on that. And so, across the board, just kind of thanks for the effort. Let’s see where we come out. There are still improvements that probably can be made, but we need to get the first set of changes in so that we’re not constantly reacting to an emergency rule set.
MR. CAIN: I appreciate those comments, Vice-Chairman Bell.
And I just will echo your comment. Our staff had put in a tremendous amount of time in this, and it can be difficult during discussions. But I applaud them. Our veterinarians, our program staff, our legal team, everybody, law enforcement who have a say in this, as well as all the stakeholder groups and the comments that we received from the people. So, hopefully, this package it’s not going to make everybody happy, as you said, but it is something we can move forward with in a positive direction. So, thank you.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Great. Any other questions?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Well, Patton. I may have one follow-up on this DMP issue. Obviously, where we’ve got a hard stop– even if you’re MLDP, but particularly if you’re not MLDP– if I wanted to get a permit for next year, do I need to start shooting for right now, or if it were to pass, would it be implemented in the next year?
MR. CAIN: That’s what would happen. If this is adopted and you apply for a DMP permit September of ’25, that season, you will be required to submit 15 tests, or up to 15 tests. So, it starts next season. What you need to do starts next season.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay. But the hunting season wouldn’t begin until October.
MR. CAIN: Or, whenever. My point is the DMP permits can be issued in August, September, whatever.
But when deer season starts next year...
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Okay. I don’t need to start shooting right now?
MR. CAIN: No.
COMMISSIONER PATTON: All right. That’s fine. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER ROWLING: This is Commissioner Rowling. So, with the removal of the zones, hopefully we’re not talking about this for ad nauseam and adding the zones and everything like that. But, I think there should be some kind of standard by which we’re tracking and reporting to us on how things are going. I don’t know what that looks like exactly, but I think we should be kind of kept up to speed to some extent on where we’re finding it or where we’re not; how these new rules are working rather than, just you know, we’ll be glad to not talk about adding new zones in a couple of months– some sort of reporting standard.
MR. CAIN: Yes. And I think I talked about that a little bit in November, especially to the Commission. We’ve got our public facing dashboard but we can continue to update you on quarterly periods on new detections, where they’re happening during season when our sampling efforts that our staff are doing. We can continue to do that so that you all stay informed. And obviously the public, as we begin ramping up and start to launch this public facing dashboard, people will be able to see surveillance efforts in their county where detections occur. And that’s something I’ve said before. We need to empower hunters and landowners to get them the information so that they could make informed decisions on how they want to manage the disease on their place, or it may not be on their place but how they want to manage or interact, whether it’s like, “Hey, I want to provide samples or I need to reduce my deer density or I may change my feeding strategy,” or whatever it is. But we just need to let people know and we intend to do that.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Anyone else? Okay, if not, thank you.
If there are no further questions, I’ll place the item on the Thursday Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action. Thank you, Alan.
Work Sessions Items #12 to #22 will be heard in Executive Session.
At this time, I’d like to announce that pursuant to the requirements of Chapter 551, Government Code, referred to as The Open Meetings Act, an Executive Session will be held at this time for the Purpose of Deliberation of Real Estate Matters Under Section 551.072 of the Open Meetings Act and Seeking Legal Advice under 551.071 of the Open Meetings Act, Including Advice Regarding Pending or Contemplated Litigation.
We will now recess for the Executive Session at 1:31 PM.
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CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Okay we will now reconvene the Work Session on January 22, 2025, at 3:35, 3:36 PM.
Before we begin, I will take roll. Hildebrand here. Bell?
VICE-CHAIRMAN BELL: Here.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Abell?
COMMISSIONER ABELL: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Doggett?
COMMISSIONER DOGGETT: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Foster?
COMMISSIONER FOSTER: Here.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Galo?
COMMISSIONER GALO: Present.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Patton?
COMMISSIONER PATTON: Here.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Scott?
CHAIRMAN SCOTT: Here.
CHAIRMAN HILDEBRAND: Okay, perfect, thank you. We are now returning from the Executive Session where we discussed the Work Session Real Estate Items #12 through #21 and Litigation Item #22.
If there are no further questions, I will place Items #12, #14, #15, #16 on the Thursday Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action. Regarding Items #13, #17 and #18, I will authorize staff to begin the public notice and input process. Regarding Item #19 through #22 no further action is needed at this time.
Dr. Yoskowitz, this Commission has completed its Work Session business, and I declare us adjourned at 3:37 PM.
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