It’s All About Habitat
OVER THE LAST three years I have traveled on fishing, hunting and wildlife photography excursions to other states more than I have in the previous 15 years combined.
It’s been a tremendous blessing to hunt turkey in New York, catch bonefish in Florida, flyfish for trout in Colorado, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Montana and photograph bighorn sheep in Nevada, New Mexico and other states.
With every exciting trip comes a little sadness.
It’s shocking the amount of wildlife and fisheries habitat being covered with concrete, degraded by urban sprawl and otherwise impacted by development and industry. It’s a major issue from sea to shining sea with no state escaping some level of problems.
In no place is habitat more endangered than right here in Texas. It breaks my heart to see what’s happening in some of the most beautiful and wildlife-rich areas in the state.
From 2010 to 2020, the Texas population grew by 15.9 percent which is twice the average rate of state growth during the same timeframe. If you want to see where a lot of that growth is taking place, look no farther than the Hill Country.
According to a story at KVUE.com, Austin has now grown to the 11th largest city in America. “There’s also been explosive growth in the Central Texas region outside of Austin, when looking at the rate of growth. For cities with more than 50,000 people, New Braunfels is third in the U.S. for fastest growing, with 90,209 (+56.4 percent) new people from April 1, 2010, to July 1, 2019.
“Cedar Park also made the top 10 fastest-growing list, with 79,462 (+44.2 percent) new people in the same time period. And Round Rock is the 13th fastest-growing large city in the U.S., with 133,372 (+33.3 percent) new people over the same time period.”
More people equals more demand on wildlife and fisheries resources.
At this point in the story someone is mad at me already, fuming that I would dare question growth.
This is a fishing, hunting and wildlife publication, and we must address what is happening to our state’s wild lands. Texas is 97 percent privately owned. That means 97 percent of the land is up for sale.
Money talks.
On a recent trip to Montana, I spent some time in the Gallatin National Forest which encompasses 1,849, 701 acres. That’s more than all national forest land in Texas (Crockett, Sam Houston, Angelina, Sabine) combined, along with all Texas Parks & Wildlife wildlife management areas on top of that.
I saw all kinds of wildlife there, many public fishing access areas and mile after mile of true wilderness. That is just one of many national forests in Montana alone with several far larger than the Gallatin.
While fishing Lower Laguna Madre, I learned about some bridge and other projects down that way that have truly frightening ramifications for the lush seagrass habitat.
And as population grows, the need for water will increase with it. This will turn to inter-basin water transfer from areas such as the Sabine Lake area where water is plentiful. It will also lead to more reservoir construction, which destroys sometimes hundreds of thousands of acres of bottomland habitat.
At some point we are going to have to talk about habitat.
If this column were about trout or flounder limits, there would be dozens of emails. I’d be shocked if I get a couple on this. There seems to be a disconnect when it comes to habitat.
It’s certainly not that people don’t have the capacity to get it. Our hunters and anglers are bright people here in Texas.
I believe it’s politics.
Most of us are conservative and through conservative social media we have been taught that even questioning development or siding on anything related to “green” is bad. I’m conservative; but I for one, like to conserve habitat, too.
Business is not only generated from pouring concrete and building structures, but from guided fishing trips, crabbing, outfitting hunts and other forms of ecotourism. Yes, it generates money and lots of it.
What happens to these people and their lifestyle when the habitat they rely on is gone or too degraded to be productive?
I’m not anti-growth. I’m certainly not anti-capitalism, and I am not suggesting we turn everything left into federal lands of some sort. Even if I wanted that to happen, it would not.
What I am saying is that as hunters, anglers and wildlife lovers, we should focus more on habitat than a lot of the other issues that distract us. If we don’t find creative ways to conserve what we have, the loss coming in the next two decades will be tremendous. There’s still time to do something about it and that’s what we’ll address in the second installment coming in the next issue.
I salute CCA for their increased focus on habitat as well as the National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited and the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust.
It’s time we all get on board with habitat conservation.
Email Chester Moore at cmoore@fishgame.com
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