- ANNOUNCER: 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 provided by the Toyota Tundra.

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

Adventure: it's what we share.

- NARRATOR: Coming up on Texas Parks and Wildlife... - What we're hoping to do here is make a giant impact on people's perception of bats.

- There's always something you don't you're going to see and I think that's an important way to be alive.

- Seeing the white rump going off into its new place, it's very special.

Very special in my heart.

They're running into their new home.

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

[playful music] - NARRATOR: Austin, Texas is home to nearly a million people, but it's also home to the largest urban bat colony in the world.

[bats chirping] One and a half million Mexican free-tailed bats live right here underneath South Congress Avenue.

They attract a lot of admirers, but their biggest fans might be these folks.

- So the tail sticks freely beyond the tail membrane.

That's what makes them a free-tail.

This is a full grown Mexican free-tail bat right here.

This is what causes all the commotion.

- Aw.

Is it okay?

- Yeah, they're actually getting released tonight 'cause they're perfectly healthy.

- Oh good.

- We get a lot of bats that are injured or still missing their mama, so they need to drink milk still.

But this little girl is good and ready to take off.

- Oh wow.

- It's so cute.

- Right!

They're super cute.

Surprisingly adorable.

There is a lot of like, negative stigma around them, but they are just so cute and sweet.

- We love the Mexican free-tail bats.

They are amazing.

They're the iconic bat of Central Texas and Austin, right here in the heart of the city.

[bats chirping] What we're hoping to do here is make a giant impact on people's perception of bats.

Let people know that they're really gentle creatures that are just trying to make a living like all of us.

We identified a need in Austin for someone to care for the orphaned and injured and displaced bats that people may encounter.

They're fascinating and they're misunderstood and we love having the opportunity to set the record straight, to let people know they're highly beneficial, completely harmless if simply left alone.

They are the first line of defense for North American agriculture.

And they're not only vital to the balance of nature, but they provide a sense of wonder.

[bat chirping] - The next thing on the list is to make sure we can find everyone.

So we have a board over here that's gonna be, we have a list of all the names and when they were fed, making sure they were fed in the morning and the evening.

And we're gonna go ahead and find everyone and label where they are.

- It's an Easter egg hunt.

Every morning is Easter here in the flight cage.

That bat with a green band is Libby.

Next to her is Pinecone.

So this is Kimo and Kahlua.

We love that they somehow find each other every morning.

Every morning, somehow they are together.

So, who do we have over here?

He's not flying great because he's below the bar.

You're either above the bar or below the bar out here.

And he definitely landed down here and then climbed up below the bar.

If a bat is found hanging up here, it means that they flew up well enough to stick the landing on the ceiling of the cage.

[wings flapping] We jokingly call this flight school here, but we are certainly not teaching them anything.

We're just offering them a chance to practice what they innately know how to do.

And that's really what this is all about.

Just giving them a chance to grow up to be successful adults.

We attract the insects that they need to learn how to hunt.

They can wiggle through the netting and fly around the black light and the bats that are hunting well enough can fill their bellies.

It's a whole different scene at night.

These little fuzzy balls that are just hanging up there looking kind of lazy.

They transform into little bug hunting machines.

We call those snackrobatics as bats do their little back flip and capture the moth.

People love that.

So what do you think, should we start with Stella?

- REBECCA: Yeah, let's get Stella and make sure she's doing okay.

- LEE: This is Stella, needs a little more work.

It's all the ones that are hanging low that we have to really work on.

- And she is completely empty.

You can see there is no bulge.

Sometimes they'll have like a little, like, grape-looking shape and that's their full belly, but right now she has nothing.

So we're gonna go over here to where our food and water is.

She's very thirsty, which is good that she wants to drink.

- LEE: How they act in the morning is a big indicator of how close they are to be ready to be released.

If they're super hungry in the morning, it means that they're not hunting well enough to be able to find their own food.

- We have well over 100 bats here right now.

They get in trouble in many ways.

They get exhausted.

They end up on the ground because they can't fly as far as they will learn to fly later.

So this is a little free-tail that came in a couple of days ago from a member of the public.

They find them on the ground, they find them all kinds of places.

Little juvenile free-tail bats that are just learning how to fly.

And sometimes, hi sweetheart, sometimes their first flight is their last, unfortunately.

This is one of the little ones that got in trouble somehow.

We never really know for sure.

And this is a blended mealworm smoothie.

It has mealworms and vitamins and minerals.

[bat chirping] We do get in, over the course of a year, 350 or more.

So they're coming in all year long.

You know, we may have 120 or something right now, but they're gonna keep coming in for the rest of the year and some of them have to be fed every three or four hours.

- REBECCA: We got a look earlier at what Stella's belly looked like before she was fed.

And then you can see here, she's got a nice full belly of worms.

You can see it's kind of a little grape.

[bat chomping mealworm] - LEE: We feel real lucky to be able to rehab them and take care of them, get 'em back out to the wild whenever they're ready.

That's one of the great joys that we have is being able to release a bat that was in serious trouble and give 'em that second chance.

Get 'em back out to the wild.

I feel real lucky to be able to do that.

- NARRATOR: Every year, thousands of people wait and watch as the world's largest urban bat colony takes flight, some for the very first time.

- The idea of there being one and a half million bats in that bridge, that creates a sense of wonder and awe right there.

[bats chirping] And they spend the winter in Mexico.

They come back for South by Southwest, have a big party at the bridge for the whole month of March.

They soon become adapted to the Austin lifecycle and become slacker bats and don't come out until after dark when it's safe.

[upbeat music] So the best time to come see the bats will be in August, September, even into October.

[upbeat music] All right, little Rico.

Happy life little buddy.

There you go.

Good boy.

Good boy.

Woo hoo!

Yeah, that was a good one.

Stretch those wings, little girl.

[upbeat music] Woo hoo!

- Oh my God.

- Yay!

Congratulations!

- That was so awesome!

- Yay!

[upbeat music] [bird chirping] [upbeat energetic music] - Car, open.

Feel like a pilot sometimes.

If a hobby's purpose is to get you outside, or at least to help you build community, then birding is that thing.

It's so good to see you.

I'm so glad you could make it.

- So good to see you.

She's down near that scar where a limb broke.

You see her, she's in the open now.

[upbeat music] - Woodpecker!

Yeah!

[upbeat music] When I talk to beginning birders about birding and the joy of birding, it's knowing that there's a mystery out there and there always is.

There's always something you don't know you're going to see.

And I think that's an important way to be alive.

[upbeat music] It was very much a family that was observant, aware and interested in knowing about nature.

[music ends] So, I was out riding after school and something spooked my horse and he just reared and turned and ran in a panic for home.

And then he ran into guide wires and that stopped him.

And I fell off and broke my back and punctured a lung.

And for so long, I was inside the hospital, and I remember a spring day or a field day or something and it was the first time I'd been out in so long and my mom was with me and I remember saying, "Everything is so green, it's so green!"

I just, I was sort of overcome with being outside again.

[boards rumbling] [chain clanging] [seed trickling] So anyway, I became a member of Travis Audubon, took all of their classes several times each.

I was completely intrigued with it from the beginning and became that obnoxious person in the back asking all these questions.

Like, yeah, you in the back.

Onto the next!

[grunts] And those field trip leaders took me everywhere and they definitely let me find my own way in nature.

It was just such a wonderful place for me to land.

- Virginia Rose, who has been using a manual wheelchair for more than 40 years, knows how difficult it can be to enjoy nature as a disabled person.

With her organization, Birdability, Rose finds ways to increase access to nature for people of all abilities and to help others find community.

[inspirational music] - You know, birds transform lives.

And so now she has created this organization that is in a position to transform lives.

- Certainly she's made a difference, and not just at the local level.

It's exploded nationally.

- As soon as Birdability rolled out, Birdability attracted interest from all over the country.

And people started pinning places all over the country.

There are over 1,700 sites on the US map alone.

[inspirational music] - You know, putting in accessibility features, what to expect, what the trails are like, what the grades like, if there's restrooms.

So that's a great, a great resource that she was instrumental in creating.

- We go back this way?

- I think so.

- Well I know we're going to the picnic tables, but... - REBECCA: I think it's shorter, I mean.

- You think it's shorter?

- For me, yeah.

- Okay, good.

I wanna do that.

My dad taught me, a good leader always asks someone else which way is the way to go.

[laughing] - She's taken her love of birds and said, I want to introduce this to everyone else that can't get out in nature, but should get out in nature.

- I think first and foremost, it got me outside again.

And then the second thing that it did is give me some physical and mental challenges.

Physical in that I was putting myself in situations whether, I don't know if I can do this or not, but I, you know, my MO always is just go and see... to see.

[upbeat music] I bet they're coming to all that chickadee chatter.

- Any other birder with a disability in Austin and beyond, who, you know, was inspired by Virginia to, you know, push ourselves out of our comfort zones, go outside, enjoy nature, enjoy birds and learn.

All of us are a reflection of her legacy.

- The butterfly that I'm looking at has those eyes on it.

I think mainly it's good for me to be outside.

I think we all know the healing properties of nature and all these amazing sounds.

And I was just sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, I am the happiest I have ever been, right now.

[inspirational music] - NARRATOR: In the arid mountains of west Texas, bighorn sheep roam freely, a symbol of the region's untamed wilderness.

Yet their presence here was nearly lost.

Unregulated hunting and disease wiped out Texas's bighorn sheep by the 1960s.

Decades of restocking have brought them back to West Texas, but a new threat now endangers their future.

- There is a disease called Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, or MOV for short, that actually can have really devastating effects on sheep populations.

- NARRATOR: A respiratory disease introduced by invasive aoudad, which have out-competed and weakened native bighorn populations.

[sheep bleating] - We've sampled aoudad.

In over 60% of the aoudad that we sampled, we detected that bacteria, that MOV.

[serene music] - Which pose a threat to bighorn sheep populations across Texas and western states.

- FROYLAN: Lots of mortality, lots of deaths.

And so that raises the urgency.

[solemn music] - NARRATOR: But on the rugged landscape of Elephant Mountain, a vital sanctuary remains.

A refuge where bighorn sheep have reclaimed their place in the wild.

[serene music] Now, a massive effort is underway to restore them to more of their historic range.

[tape stripping] [helicopter blades whirring] Relocating bighorn sheep from Elephant Mountain to the Franklin Mountains will help rebuild their population in a land they once called home.

[upbeat country music] [helicopter blades whirring] ♪ ♪ - CREW: Fire on your nose.

One o'clock, 100 yards out.

♪ ♪ Watch the downhill.

- PILOT: Yep, I see that.

- CREW: C'mon sweetheart, turn.

[upbeat country music] Where you at?

There's lots of dangers involved with this type of work, because it's hovering, low ground.

It's just maneuvering back and forth.

Ready?

Coming across.

Good one.

- This will be good.

Get her going back uphill.

- I got you.

- Good shot.

- It's a great method.

It's one of the most effective ones to capture bighorns.

- Here you go.

- He got her.

- How're you handling, Monty?

- I'm doing good.

It's a little steep but I'm almost done.

- CREW: Clutch ready to go up.

[helicopter blades whirring] [radio chatter] [energetic music] - NARRATOR: Suspended beneath the helicopter, the sheep glide over the landscape, carried swiftly to the drop zone.

[helicopter blades whirring] - I'm trying.

Yep.

- That looks pretty good.

About to get down.

- Just landed.

[helicopter blades whirring] - FROYLAN: You got the animal handlers to go pick them up and bring them to the processing stations where we'll take tissue samples and put collars on them.

- NARRATOR: At the processing station, the team works quickly to assess the sheep's health.

- Right there.

- It's going well.

We've got four animals here.

People are starting to get in a rhythm of it.

- HUNTER: Can you hold that head up a little bit straighter here?

- SARA: The core of everything is disease sampling.

We're doing those swabs, we're doing some blood collection.

- Let's do another.

- One 30 mil syringe is fine.

- SARA: That will go to a lab and we will see if there's been any MOV exposure or current MOV within the population.

We're in a world where disease is moving around, especially when we have aoudad a bringing in disease.

We really wanna work to make sure that our native populations are healthy and that we can continue to protect them and be good stewards of wildlife.

All right, did you hear, this one's coming in hot already, so we'll work fast on this one.

As a veterinarian on this project, some of the things that I have to take care of is, of course, making sure that the sheep are overall healthy when they come off of the capture.

This is a ewe and we've been doing an ultrasound on all of the ewes to check their pregnancy status.

So, look, right there on the bottom, there's the feet kicking, right there.

Now we also know what to expect for the spring when we have these animals on the Franklin Mountains, how many lamb numbers we expect to see.

So that's super exciting.

- It'll be all clean animals, all negative animals, negative for that mycoplasma.

We'll process 'em, put 'em in transport trailers, and then we'll translocate them to the Franklin Mountains.

[upbeat music] The drive is one I like.

It's a beautiful winding road in the, you know, in the heart of the Big Bend.

Six total trailers going over there.

It's a convoy and it's a sight to see.

[road ambience] [upbeat music] And just, it'll be great.

Pull up and open those gates.

But that would be the, I guess the exclamation point on this project.

[upbeat music] - NARRATOR: Thanks to its geographic features, the Franklin Mountains provide a strategic advantage for this new herd of bighorn.

- It's kind of isolated and there's no exotic sheep in this area, like the aoudad.

[woman] That's so cool.

- CESAR: This is very exciting.

Big turnout from the community.

Everybody excited, everybody happy seeing these animals being released here.

They're coming back into what once was their home.

[sheep hooves galloping] [inspirational music] ♪ ♪ - Seeing what I call the, you know, just the white butt or the white rump going off into its new place.

It's very special, very special in my heart.

They're running into their new home.

♪ ♪ The true picture of this restoration effort is establishing a viable herd on the Franklin Mountains to continue our restoration efforts on other mountain ranges.

♪ ♪ [everyone clapping] Well, yeah, it's been challenging.

♪ ♪ This is just the beginning of a wonderful, wonderful effort.

♪ ♪ [rolling waves] [rolling waves] [rolling waves] [rolling waves] [rolling waves] [rolling waves] [rolling waves] [rolling waves] [rolling waves] [rolling waves] [rolling waves] [rolling waves] - CAMERAMAN: Kinda point to it, like, "Yeah, that's me!"

[laughing] [rolling waves] 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 provided by the Toyota Tundra.

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

Adventure: it's what we share.