- NARRATOR: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding is provided by Toyota.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Toyota--Let's Go Places.

Coming up on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - We're concerned about ecological effects, but we're also concerned about economic effects, things like erosion and bank collapse.

- We have bald eagles here, but we also have painted buntings and just all different types of birds of prey.

- When they arrive, they unload off the buses and they just step out onto the boardwalk.

[theme music] ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: Texas Parks & Wildlife, a television series for all outdoors.

- NICK: Being able to see the wildlife, to see the fish, to see the wild rice dancing with the flow of the current, it's just a very amazing place.

[water trickling] [gentle music] It's all free-diving, just snorkeling.

Very unique experience in clear, spring-fed water like this.

My name is Nick Menchaca.

I'm owner/operator of Atlas Environmental and we're contractors with the Habitat Conservation Plan.

Feel very blessed to be part of the project, we've been doing it for 10 years out here in the San Marcos River.

The armored catfish are an aquarium-released fish.

This is one of the rivers in Texas that has been invaded by suckermouth armored catfish.

They're from South America, they're common in the aquarium trade because they eat algae, they do well in aquaria, but unfortunately that means that they're introduced into ecosystems where humans come in close contact with water.

[splash] And the ecosystems they invade tend to look like aquaria.

And so the San Marcos River is basically a giant aquarium, very clear water, lots of vegetation, lots of algae for these fish to consume.

- I'm Josh Perkin.

I'm an assistant professor at Texas A&M University.

We're here for this project to try to understand how many fish are in the river and how we can adapt management of that population to control it to a better extent.

[gentle music] [water trickling] There's no natural predators here for suckermouth armored catfish.

So they go through rapid population growth and can start to overcrowd the river.

[water gurgling] - They grow fast, they spawn young, they reproduce very rapidly.

They have basically overpopulated to the point of outcompeting our native species.

They'll burrow up under the bank, up underneath the concrete and create like an undercut.

- JOSH: We're concerned about their effects on the erosion that's happening and the bank collapse.

This population in the San Marcos River is actively being controlled.

[water roaring] So Atlas Environmental and Nick Menchaca are using spearfishing to suppress the population.

- You can just hook this around your hand, and then stretch out the rubber band and grip the front of the pole spear, and then whenever you release it, it shoots out.

With the very rapid reload, it makes it a very efficient method of removal.

[gentle music] It's the most selective form of fish removal.

Very efficient in terms of removing the armored catfish as well as the tilapia.

[gentle music] Definitely got harder over the years.

They definitely know they're being hunted now.

Woo!

We do two tournaments a year, the bi-annual polespear tournaments.

We do have a free fish fry twice a year which is mainly tilapia, but if we have a big enough armored catfish, we'll serve up those as well.

We give out about 400 to 1,000 free tacos.

Whenever the tournaments aren't going on we have a year-round bounty program which is free to participate.

We have a dive board with a dive flag that we'll send you out with and all the authorities recognize that and that will keep you from getting in any trouble as long as you're just spearing armored catfish and tilapias.

[water gurgling] 14,000 armored catfish removed since 2013.

It's definitely a lot.

- We'll find out from the data where 508 came from.

Our study is designed to enhance that control.

Can we use really focused control, where we spearfish in localized areas?

Or are these fish moving long distances where they might be recolonizing areas where they've been removed?

- I'm going to try and grab a couple of specimens.

- JOSH: Excellent!

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department funded this research.

We work with the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University, those are the divers that do a lot of the underwater work, including catching the fish that we put the transmitters in and then monitoring and retrieving our sensors that are listening for those tagged fish.

We use ultrasonic transmitters that emit signals.

- CHRIS: We had some underwater receivers that we pulled up.

- JOSH: Good job!

- Pulled some data off of them from our fish that have tags in them that track their kind of movement and behavior.

- We have 13,936 records.

- CHRIS: We actually pulled out a specimen that was tagged, we were able to check on the recovery from the surgery that was required from that.

- We still don't know how quickly they grow, we don't know how old these fish get in this population, so we can learn a lot through a recapture of a specimen like this.

- 174.

- CHRIS: Outside of the range of our stationary receivers we ran the canoe system that had the hydrophone in it to try to narrow down where some of the fish are.

- We have not recorded a fish moving from where we released them in Sewell up to here.

We want to know how many fish are in the river, where are they spending most of their time, and how much are they moving throughout the river.

[water gurgling] So we capture fish, we internally plant these transmitters and we follow their movements.

It's a hydrophone, we're listening for a fish with a transmitter in it.

And what we're finding is the habitats where they're most abundant are the human-altered habitats, so banks that have been stabilized by concrete that's then eroding and crumbling in, those are the places where we see their highest abundances.

But by also looking in places with lower abundances, we can eventually develop a population size estimate for the entirety of the river.

To count the number of fish in the river, we use a raft.

So we call it our lighted immersible fish enumerator, or L.I.F.E., so our life raft, we float.

You know this is looking down on the bottom, and then these are just underwater lights for at night, and then we put a GPS unit in here that tracks our path.

[gentle music] It's tough to measure these fish 'cause they hide and they're most active at night, and so a big part of our current project is to test for a measurable effect of the spearfishing with data that don't come from the spear-fishers.

So can we run our raft down the river and see a measurable reduction in the number of fish that are present as we go through the spearfishing tournaments?

We would like to keep the ecosystem in a state that's as close as possible to its natural state.

The natural state would be no suckermouth armored catfish.

What we're hoping to achieve with this project is an idea of functional eradication.

- CHRIS: The ultimate goal would be just to minimize their impact as much as possible.

People love the river.

There's a lot of community involvement with the river, kind of community ownership of what they have here.

- JOSH: It sure makes it easier to work with a water body that others are interested in preserving and conserving.

[gentle music] - NICK: I would say do not release any aquarium species into the river.

You know, very bad for the river and, you know, also it's not gonna necessarily survive because we're hunting those fish.

We're really trying to get it restored to its native state where we're not seeing quite as many invasive fish.

They're definitely still out there, but we're fighting the fight to keep the populations down and keep the native populations up.

[gentle music] Celebrating a century of Texas State Parks.

[upbeat music] - MAN: What I love about this park is the accessibility to nature.

You just never know what you're gonna see and the beauty and the natural wonders.

It's a place to explore nature.

- NARRATOR: On a gently rolling landscape in central Texas lies a welcoming natural refuge.

Lake Somerville State Park is made up of two units, joined together by a great wilderness path that weaves around the shores of an 11,000-plus acre lake.

- JOHN: Both units offer boating, birding and fishing opportunities.

- ANGLER: Nice fish!

- Here you go.

- JOHN: You can also hike, bike, ride your horse on over 40 miles of trails.

We have RV camp sites, or you can pitch your tent under the stars on the trailway, pretty much everything you'd wanna do in the outdoors.

[birds chirping] Lake Somerville State Park lies in the Post Oak Savannah and Post Oak Savannah gives you lots of Oaks, like the name implies, but also a lot of native prairie grasses and flowers, and flowers bring the insects and insects bring the birds, so it's kind of a birder's paradise.

Probably the most popular things are the Bald Eagles.

We have bald eagles here, but we also have painted buntings and just all different types of birds of prey and water fowl.

So it really is a birder's paradise.

[gentle guitar music] - NARRATOR: Lake Somerville is fed by Yegua Creek and its tributaries.

The Yegua has drawn people to its shores for millennia.

- Some of the same reasons why Lake Somerville State Park is a great area for people to visit today are the same reasons why these were great places for native peoples in the past.

We have a superlative natural resource base.

There was an abundance of game.

Some archeologists think fish as well, and certainly native edible wild plants.

- NARRATOR: In the 1960s, the Army Corps of Engineers damned the Yegua Creek Basin.

The resulting lake created new outdoor recreation opportunities and Lake Somerville State Park opened in 1970.

- We have First Creek Unit and Nails Creek Unit.

We have a 13-mile trailway that connects the two around the lake.

The trailway is really where it all comes together and connects both units with nature.

[gentle guitar music] - Isn't that nice?

- Yeah.

- The main trail is 13 miles long from Birch Creek to Nails Creek, but we also have about 15 miles of other trails and spurs that go off of the main trailway.

[gentle guitar music] - MAN: That Bend look good girls, right down there?

- GIRL: Yes.

- MAN: There you go.

Way to go Evelyn.

[gentle guitar music] - TRAVIS: What I love most about the trailway is the variety of activities we have to do.

- GIRL: I'm getting you, John.

- CHRIS: I really love this set of trails because it's secluded.

You get the breeze of the lake, then you're in these canopied sections that keep the sun off of you.

And you're back to being able to see the wide open space.

It's wonderful.

It's just really something special to be able to be in a place that's not far from several major cities but really feel like I'm out in the middle of nowhere.

It just goes on and on, it seems like the trailway never ends.

- FATHER: All right, buddy, keep an eye out for the eagles.

- BOY: I heard those, those, those frogs do like, rrip, rrip, rrip, rrip.

I heard them.

- What's that, that's a flying eagle isn't it?

Is it that guy is that big thing?

What's that?

- FATHER: We're hiking, having a good time with kiddos.

- BOY: Look what the Eagles can do.

- MOTHER: Whoa, yeah.

- BOY: I was gonna lead the way.

- MOTHER: Okay, you lead the way.

- FATHER: Short loop, but enjoyable loop.

Hey, what's that, what's that?

- MOTHER: Oh wow.

- BOY: It's the Eagle!

- FATHER: Is that a bald?

- MOTHER: It's like a classic American Eagle pose.

[eagle calls] - JAMES: You know, the old saying to get away from it all, it's actually a great thing.

[food sizzling] Kind of feels like a reset.

You're back, you're a little bit cleansed in a way.

Feel like you're back at a baseline and not just the extremes of work and being busy and chores.

It just feels like you reset a little bit.

- CHRIS: Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway is quality.

[water lapping] - TRAVIS: Lake Somerville, State Park and Trailway offers something for all to enjoy.

- JOHN: It's just really a unique place in Texas.

[upbeat music] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [graceful music] - NARRATOR: Just east of Dallas, you'll find a wetland that's a one-of-a-kind outdoor classroom.

- JOHN: Today, in the East Fork wetland, the John Bunker Sands Wetland Center, we're welcoming Black Elementary from Mesquite Independent School District.

When they arrive, they'll unload off the buses and they just step out onto the boardwalk.

We call it an immersive boardwalk hike.

They go out for 20 to 30 minutes and make general observations.

- STUDENT: Look how pretty!

- Oh, there's ducks back there.

- So, the East Fork wetland is about 2,000 acres, mostly open emergent wetlands.

But we also have some hillside and some streamside and riverside riparian areas.

- STUDENT: Ooh, I want it.

- Wait, where?

I can't see y'all's view.

- Right there, wait, right there, right there.

That light green right there.

- Oh, I see it.

Okay, so there's two frogs on one of the stems right here, and another one right here.

- Did you see them?

- Yeah!

- [laughing] I love watching them interact with nature, however they interact with nature.

- STUDENT: Oh, look, a dragon fly!

- NICOLE: I think it's important because they're making those connections.

- STUDENT: Hold on, right there, there's like a turtle!

- Oh, my God, there's a family of fish.

I like to go outside and enjoy the outside world, and I like to, like, see a lot of animals running around and look at them up close.

All right, come on, guys.

Let's keep walking.

See if we find other stuff.

- NARRATOR: This isn't just a wetland outdoor classroom.

Taking water out of the Trinity, this is a water treatment wetland that cleans up to 90 million gallons of water a day.

- This natural treatment system, our wetlands, is the largest man-made wetland system in the United States, and it provides a number of different ways of treating the water.

There, it's coming up!

We use gravity.

We use sunlight.

We use plants in order to polish the water and remove constituents such as suspended solids, phosphorus, and nitrogen.

- NARRATOR: This natural water reuse concept was crafted by John Bunker Sands, turning his family's cattle operation into a one-of-a-kind wetland.

- We got quite a bit of the sedge.

- NARRATOR: Loretta Mokry helped come up with the idea.

- Before the wetland was built, this was a operating ranch that had been leveled and ditched and drained to where everything was in big square pastures.

Early spring, until we get the first really hard freeze, you'll have delta arrowhead blooming.

So, at this time, we're looking at planting all of these gaps with giant bulrush.

- BIOLOGIST 1: When you're ready, I'll pull it out.

- BIOLOGIST 2: Now.

- LORETTA: So that we can fill in and have a fully vegetated marsh area that the water has to percolate through.

- This project is a tremendous opportunity to make good use of those water resources which are in our area.

We are really proud to be able to implement a project to use local resources to meet the needs of our local communities.

- Ya know, there's been a change in time, but it's been a change for the good, so that we have this sustainable water supply at the same time that we're protecting the aquatic environment of the river, as well as the aquatic environment that's here in the wetland.

I have a son and daughter in-law and five grandchildren that live in Plano, Texas, and developing this wetland, as it comes through, I know that it helps provide water supply that they receive at their tap.

This is water supply to my grandchildren.

It just... makes you feel good.

[laughing] - Yes, what do you have?

- STUDENT: I saw a shell.

- You saw a shell?

That's really good!

I tell them, like, this water that is a habitat for other ecosystems, this is your drinking water.

Like this is... You use it, you're going to cook your ramen noodles with it, you're going to flush the toilet with it, you're going to shower with it.

And that really gets their attention because after they start noticing that this affects me, that gets that buy in.

- She said that also how they clean the water is with the little cattails that was in the water.

It is really cool, how you get to see all the plants and all the animals that make the water, like, clean, and that's the water that you use.

It was pretty cool, actually.

- So, if you just glance right into the water, what do you see floating around on top?

Yeah, a lot of minnows.

When I think about the work that we do here... Yeah, you might want to pull off some of the big stuff.

Oh, see, there's a beetle in the bottom.

See him right there?

- Oh, yeah!

- And the work that we do here isn't just about students coming through and learning about what water is and how we recycle it.

It's about creating that next best solution that is more powerful than we can imagine today.

Oh, I did get a fish!

We're not just hugging trees, were hugging cattails, literally.

We're immersing them into the water.

We're giving them an opportunity to see what it might be like to either be a scientist or a biologist in this or just someone that engages with nature differently than they did before.

So, if we can reach one student on that level or many students... and then as they grow older and go off to college and say, this is what I want to do, I was at John Bunker Sands for four hours one day, and it's amazing what they did there.

That's the difference that we want to make in the world.

That's the next best solution.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ [frogs and crickets chirp] [adventurous music] [water flowing] - Tyler State Park is, is single track through the woods, um, there are no jeep roads.

Everybody ready!

- BRENT: Ten miles of trails here so, when you're back on the trail system in Tyler State Park, you are away from everything.

It's just you and the woods!

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - I come to Tyler State Park and ride about four days a week, I do, I love it!

[tires on trail] And mountain biking, to me, it's kind of addictive.

If I don't get to mountain bike at least once a week, I kind of get depressed, and I love Tyler State Park, I love to be on a trail that challenges me.

[upbeat music] - BRANDON: There's something here for everybody.

We have difficult climbs and fast descents.

[uptempo music] I think there's some challenging corners, but there's also stuff for people at every different level, there's some flatter areas that are better for beginners... and there are things that challenge people that still ride here every week.

- BRENT: The key thing for riding the trails at Tyler State Park is to stay focused on looking ahead, you'll take in the roots, the rocks.

It'll guide you over and through everything that you do!

- SUSAN: They say it's one of the best trails in Texas actually.

It has a lot of sharp ups and downs, quick, what we call punchy climbs.

You can work really hard to go up and down those short punchy climbs.

- BRENT: There's nothing like coming out here, hitting the trails, hitting them hard.

Cruising through the woods, trees flying by.

It's just you and nature you get real in touch with yourself.

[bike whooshes by] Next thing you know, an hour's gone by and you've had a blast!

[water rushing] [water rushing] [water trickles] [water rushing] [water rushing] [water rushing] [water rushing] [water rushing] [water rushing] [water rushing] [water rushing] - NARRATOR: This series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding is provided by Toyota.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Toyota--Let's Go Places.