AUSTIN, Texas — What started as a wild idea in 1999 has become an important way to fund wildlife and fisheries conservation and support state parks in Texas, as evidenced by tens of thousands of motorists who have raised more than $4 million by humming down Lone Star roadways sporting conservation license plates.
AUSTIN, Texas — As an ecosystem, the Gulf of Mexico functions on a global scale. At more than 579,000 square miles, it’s the ninth largest body of water in the world. The July issue of Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine offers an in-depth exploration of the gulf from a number of angles.
AUSTIN, Texas — "We have this rock in our yard we call our thinking rock. We’ll go out there and read, and if we see a bird, we look it up in my husband’s bird book."
AUSTIN, Texas — Winning teams in the 2008 Great Texas Birding Classic have awarded their conservation prize money to fund seven habitat projects totaling $73,000 along the Texas coast. Touted as the world’s longest birding competition, the Birding Classic has funded a total of $651,000 for avian habitat conservation since it began 12 years ago.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — As best anyone can tell, sometime during the middle of May a female Kemp’s ridley turtle crawled out of the surf on South Padre Island and was struck by a passing vehicle. The cautionary tale illustrates why biologists are asking beachgoers to keep an eye out for the endangered sea turtles and report sightings.
AUSTIN, Texas — The famed wide-open spaces of Texas are under siege, threatened by ever-expanding suburban development and fragmenting into ever-smaller pieces as people in cities buy up land in the country. The good news is conservation-minded landowners stand as bastions against these trends, places like Llano Springs Ranch south of Junction, which on May 21 received the Leopold Conservation Award for Texas from Sand County Foundation and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, part of the department’s Lone Star Land Steward Awards program.
AUSTIN, Texas — A new public hunting opportunity for newcomers, the Mentored Hunting Permit (MHP), will launch this fall. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission approved the new hunter recruitment initiative at its May 22 public meeting.
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is now accepting applications for Landowner Assisted Management Permitting System (LAMPS) antlerless deer permits for the 2008-2009 hunting season. The LAMPS program was initiated in 1993 to offer East Texas landowners and hunters additional opportunities for harvesting antlerless deer.
AUSTIN, Texas — The State Parks Division of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will host a public meeting on Thursday, June 12 at 7:00 PM at the Bellaire City Hall Auditorium, 7008 South Rice Avenue in Bellaire. The meeting will focus on natural and cultural resource management activities on state park properties, with a particular focus on management challenges at Big Bend Ranch State Park.
AUSTIN, Texas — Game Warden Alan Biggerstaff of Conroe has been named the 2008 Southern States Boating Officer of the Year for Texas.