About TPW Television

Series Overview

Texas Parks & Wildlife is a weekly, half-hour program airing on Texas PBS stations, as well as other public television stations around the country. You can also see the show on around 50 city government and educational access channels across the state. Watch the show on your schedule through PBS Online, the PBS app, or our YouTube channel.

This year marks our 38th broadcast season. Originally titled Made in Texas, the program began production in 1985 as a magazine-style show, featuring three to four different stories each week. For a few years the show focused on one topic per week, documentary style. In 1991 the name of the show changed to Texas Parks & Wildlife and reverted to the magazine format we continue to this day. Each week, our program travels to destinations around Texas, telling stories that cover a range of topics--from in-depth conservation issues to outdoor activities for the whole family.

2023 marks the centennial of Texas State Parks, so this season will feature extra visits to parks around the state and highlight some history and hopes for the next hundred years of the state's beloved park system. Special programming will include a look at state parks then and now, a story about the park system's most famous trees, and a project pairing artists with parks as a source of inspiration for their art. The season will close with an entire episode focused on a single day at Ray Roberts Lake State Park, as experienced by campers, mountain bikers, horseback riders and more.

In other stories this season, we'll see how university researchers and local citizens are battling an invasive fish threatening the ecology of the San Marcos River. We'll get all too close to some alligators, go fishing for white bass, and meet some folks in South Texas who have found their own tasty way to tackle the state's feral pig problem. We'll tour Texas on motorcycle, meet some young archers, and we'll meet a new crop of Lone Star Land Stewards—exemplary landowners and land managers who conserve and restore habitats around the state.

Each week we'll present our award-winning stories about the people and places that make the outdoors of Texas the natural place to be. Our hope is to inspire you to get outside to enjoy the wild things and wild places of Texas. We want to provide compelling reasons for you to care about the state's natural and cultural heritage, and we want to inform you about ways we can conserve that heritage. We hope our program fosters a deeper appreciation of our diverse natural world, and the many ways to connect with it. Please join us as we explore the natural State of Texas.

Check your local PBS station for airtimes, or view individual stories and broadcast shows in their entirety on the Texas Parks and Wildlife You Tube channel and PBS Online.

Broadcast rights to Texas Parks & Wildlife are free to all public television stations in the United States. Our program is offered in HD by the National Educational Telecommunications Association to member stations. Public, Educational and Governmental channels wishing to broadcast the show can contact tpwtv@tpwd.texas.gov for more information.

History of the Series

Made in Texas

1985

Originally titled “Made in Texas,” the program began production in 1985 as a monthly magazine-style show with three to four different topics each episode. Watch the very first show.
TV Show title 1991

1991

For a few years the show focused on one topic each week, documentary style. In 1991 the name of the show changed to Texas Parks & Wildlife and reverted to the magazine-style format. Watch.
TV Show title 2003

2003

By 2003 the show's storytellers had won 13 Emmys and 61 other awards. They also began the first of five one-hour documentaries on the state of water conservation in Texas. Awards.
TV Show title 2012

2012

By 2012 the show was being viewed by about 50,000 weekly viewers and by millions online on TPWD's YouTube channel and PBS online. It was also the year the crew started shooting episodes in HD. Watch.

Meet the Producers

Play nowKyle Banowsky

Kyle Banowsky

Kyle takes to the trails on his bike and shoots the Chihuahuan Desert Bike Fest.
Play nowAlan Fisher

Alan Fisher

Alan gives us a glimpse of the not-so-glamorous aspects of television production.

Behind the Scenes

  • Abe Moore at Buescher State Park in 2015.
  • A sunburned Alan Fisher at the end of a long day in Big Bend Ranch State Park
  • Don Cash in one of the slot canyons at Big Bend Ranch State Park.
  • Earl Nottingham and Bruce Biermann get their GoPro faces on while shooting some aerials at Powderhorn Ranch.
  • Karen Loke does some camera maintenance in the field.
  • Kyle Banowsky on a game warden boat in the Gulf of Mexico.
  • Lee Smith makes some adjustments to the helicopter camera mount.
  • Randall Maxwell on a shoot at Falcon Lake.
  • Abe Moore shoots the fall colors at Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
  • Video producer Curtis Craven often shot still photos as part of his work.
  • Don Cash with a busted camera at Lost Maples. The shoot was over at that point.
  • It took a pretty big crew to shoot a public service announcement with musician Kevin Fowler.
  • Lee Smith with Walter Cronkite who was the voice of several documentaries on water issues.
  • Mark Thurman in the Trans-Pecos shooting desert survival tips.
  • Hanging a camera out of a train isn't recommended, but Randall Maxwell was determined to get the shot.
  • Richard Roberts in the edit room back in the days when the show was edited on videotape.
  • Whitney Bishop shooting west Texas vistas.
  • Kyle Banowsky, Abe Moore and Alan Fisher shoot a wild game cooking segment with chef Jeff Martinez.
  • Abe Moore shooting a trout study in Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
  • Alan Fisher shoots artist Billy Hassell at the newly acquired Powderhorn Ranch.
  • Richard Roberts and Bruce Biermann get wet at Inks Lake State Park.
  • Don Cash and Kyle Banowsky cover the Texas Water Safari at 4am.
  • Gwen Zucker waits for the light to change on the Texas coast.
  • Karen Loke and Mark Southern on a shoot at Big Bend Ranch State Park.
  • Kyle Banowsky after a long day of following a mule deer hunt.
  • Lee Smith, somewhere in East Texas, has an audio cable for lunch.
  • Randall Maxwell recording the ripples in a Texas stream.
  • 1980's TV team. Richard Roberts, Curtis Craven, Gwen Zucker, Lydia Saldaña, Mark Thurman, Katheryn Palmer, Lee Smith.
  • Richard Roberts shoots nighttime bat banding in west Texas.
  • Kathryn Palmer on location in Big Bend Ranch State Park.
  • Randall Maxwell in west Texas with a very heavy Ampex betacam camera.
  • Karen Loke and Bruce Biermann travelled to Mexico to document the release of juvenile Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles.
  • Whitney Bishop videotapes wet wardens taking a water safety training course.
  • Producer Ron Kabele won 20 EMMY awards while at Texas Parks and Wildlife.
  • Kyle Banowsky prepares to fly a camera mounted microcopter to capture some aerial video.
  • Don Cash carries camera gear on location at Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park.
  • Abe Moore used raw chicken parts to entice alligators in for their close ups.
  • Alan Fisher videotaping the capture and relocation of Gambel's quail near Candelaria.
  • Producer Bruce Biermann captures the Texas State Bison Herd at Caprock Canyons State Park.
  • Producer Don Cash interviews a member of the Wildland Fire Team after the Bastrop State Park fire.
  • Producer Lee Smith aboard the Battleship TEXAS.
  • Producers Don Cash and Mark Thurman cover the Bastrop State Park fire.
  • Producer Whitney Bishop captures the relocation and release of Bighorn Sheep at Big Bend Ranch State Park.
  • Producer Abe Moore descends into the Devil's Sinkhole.
  • Producer Abe Moore covers Texas Game Wardens making water rescues during Austin flooding.
  • Producer Alan Fisher captures the Great Texas Birding Classic in Port Aransas.
  • Producer Bruce Biermann shooting an artificial reef off the Texas coast.
  • Producer Karen Loke on location in the Texas Hill Country.
  • Producer Lee Smith gathering aerials out of the side of a helicopter.
  • Producer Karen Loke covers the opening of the Lady Bird Lake Paddling Trail.
  • Producers Alan Fisher and Whitney Bishop on location at Enchanted Rock State Park.