- 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 typically find blue sucker in large woody debris, boulders, so it's dangerous to be shocking these fish out of.

- Amid all of this urban growth, there is this gem.

It really is a magical place.

- This year with the huge influx, people aren't used to seeing this many turtles, uh, we weren't used to seeing this many turtles.

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

[boat revs] - NARRATOR: Matthew Acre is searching for a blue ghost.

It's here on the Colorado River where this team spends days, weeks, months of the year looking for a rare and threatened fish called the blue sucker.

[water splashing] - Currently, the blue sucker, its status is somewhat unknown in the lower Colorado River, so we are not 100% sure how the blue sucker is doing.

[energetic music] - DAKUS GEESLIN: Whew!

Come on blue.

- NARRATOR: So they are here electrofishing... - DAKUS: Carp.

- NARRATOR: ...to try and find them.

- So we are about ten miles east of Austin on the Colorado River, we are looking for that faster water, and some type of structure, they are really adept at swimming in fast water, they are great swimmers.

What was that?

- A smallmouth buffalo!

- NARRATOR: Blue suckers are very rare today.

They used to be found throughout North America, but dams and poor river quality have led to their dramatic decline.

- MATTHEW: This is the coolest fish, most people think it is a carp, but it is in fact a catostomid, a sucker.

It's unique in that it has this really elongated body and it hangs out in these fast flowing waters, shoots, and riffles, that most fish tend to avoid because they just don't have the energy budget to stay within that riffle.

- DAKUS: Bass!

- NARRATOR: While the blue sucker is elusive, the team has another fish on their radar.

Jess Pease his here studying the Guadalupe bass... - DAKUS: Whoa, is that a bass!

- NARRATOR: ...the state fish of Texas.

- JESS: Along with tracking the movements of the blue sucker, we are also tracking Guadalupe bass movements.

- DAKUS: Wow, that's a good one, Jess!

- JESS: Previous studies have shown in the upper tributaries which are smaller systems that they are pretty sedentary and don't move that much.

And down here with this bigger river system, we are seeing larger movements by these Guadalupe bass to very specific habitats.

- DAKUS: Oh wow!

Wow Jess, that's what we are talking about!

[laughs] Yeah!!

- JESS: Little Guad, two seventy nine.

- NARRATOR: While Guadalupe bass are here, these big largemouth bass are all the buzz!

- JESS: His flow number is 2304.

- DAKUS: This is just another indicator that the Colorado River is gaining quick notoriety as a trophy largemouth bass and a Guadalupe bass fishery.

[energetic music] - DAKUS: It is highly productive area, there's lots of food for these guys to eat.

Lots of cover.

So, we've seen a real increase in the utilization by anglers coming out here and fishing for specifically targeting Guadalupe bass and our bigger largemouth bass.

- NARRATOR: As for the blue sucker search, no luck so far today.

But Matthew knows this is where they like to hang out.

- What we have noticed the past couple of years doing this work is that the stretch between Austin and La Grange tends to have the most blue sucker.

It is very diverse, it has lots of twists and turns, and it is a little bit narrower.

- NARRATOR: Biologists agree most fish prefer the natural flow of a river.

[rushing water] And fish do best when dam releases mimic the seasonal high and low flows that they are used to.

- In any river ecosystem, what you are hoping for is a natural flow regime, and what that means, is just a natural, natural hydrology.

Those are essential to not only the blue sucker and the Guadalupe bass, but to a lot of critters.

[boat engine revs, water splashes] [splashing] There is your buffalo.

[splashing] Shad hole!

- JESS: Geez!

- DAKUS: Come on blue!

- MATTHEW: We typically find blue sucker in large woody debris, lots of cobble, and boulders, so it's generally somewhat dangerous to be shocking these fish out of when we are doing these mark recapture studies.

But um, for the love of the fish!

[energetic music] - JESS: Hey, hey, hey, Dakus!

- DAKUS: I missed him!

[energetic music] Right there Matt, right there!

Agh!!

[energetic music] - JESS: There we go!

- MATTHEW: Nicely done, everyone!!

- Nice!

[laughter] Wow, finally!

He was in that fast water just where we expected him to be!

It just took us a couple of passes through there.

You just have to be on your game.

That is awesome dude!

- MATTHEW: So this is an adult male blue sucker.

He's in great shape, very healthy looking.

He's about six hundred and ninety-six millimeters, which is twenty-seven and a half inches.

So this is a PIT tag, a passive integrated transponder.

It allows us to uniquely identify individual blue suckers.

We'll PIT tag it, right here just under the dorsal fin.

We take the scales and the scales we use to age the fish.

Put them in a certain class!

So we know how many fish were spawned in a certain season.

Oh, it's so exciting to catch a blue sucker, we put four hours of work into catching a single blue sucker, so, fantastic!

Now we are going to release him.

[splashing] [calm music] - NARRATOR: Using an antenna and a receiver, these two are out again, with radio telemetry they monitor some of the 170 blue suckers that are now tagged.

- JESS: One hundred and fourteen at sixty two.

- MATTHEW: There he is!

The telemetry work that we do, we are able to tell where that fish at that particular moment, and we can use that data in conjunction with flow data.

To determine when blue sucker are most likely to move, and this gives us a better idea of what blue sucker prefer.

- NARRATOR: This study and the scientific data will hopefully help ensure that the Colorado's natural flow continues.

- DAKUS: So what we are really hoping for out of this study is to develop the science for the blue sucker, so we as resource managers can better inform some of the water policy decisions, and the management of our Highland Lakes there above Austin.

And how we can manage the river and the lakes as one system.

- NARRATOR: As for Matthew, he's not going to stop the science anytime soon!

- Too often, I think that natural resources and ecosystems as a whole kind of get overlooked.

And what we need to do to gain that seat at the table to help influence those people actually making the policy, we need science, we have to have the data.

- DAKUS: Let's get us a blue sucker out of here!

- MATTHEW: So that's why I do this every day!

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

[waves crashing] [birds squawking] [gentle music] - Every park is unique and special in the state of Texas.

I'm gonna encourage you to go to every single one of them at least once.

Why you should come here to Galveston, you need to see how unique our beaches are.

Come and learn about our coastal prairie that we're protecting.

Come and see the beauty of the gulf and the bay.

Come and watch the sunset on the bay.

They're absolutely stunning.

Maybe you'll be out there on the beach in the morning for a sunrise, and it'll be an unforgettable experience.

There is a lot of fun activities to do for the kids.

You see them enjoying boogie boarding, surfing.

We have some amazing opportunities for water recreation on the beach side.

- I love it.

I'm gonna eat it.

[waves crashing] - KYLE: When we can peel them off of the beach and get them over to the bay side, get them on those hiking trails, maybe they're gonna see an alligator in one of our freshwater ponds.

Maybe we can take them crabbing or fishing.

- Oh, I see it!

They caught it!

It's big!

- Got it.

- He won't let go of the chicken.

- KYLE: We encourage folks to see the whole park.

Most of them are coming here for that beach and sand, and they're pretty surprised at the other things we can offer.

[gentle music] - RICK BECKER: We are about to go on a bay hike.

Do you notice anything about this area?

It's an interpretive walk.

- Wow.

- RICK: Where we take guests down and introduce them to that part of the park.

Talk about the flora, talk about the fauna.

Let's just taste.

And talk about the salt marsh and its importance to the climate.

- Salty.

- RICK: Very salty.

Then we'll go across the street to Lake Como, and we'll take a seine net out into the lake.

And we'll see what we catch.

It's like a treasure hunt.

You drag the net through, and you never know what you're going to find.

Oh, look at what we got.

As we pull it up, you can see the excitement in the kids' eyes.

- You know?

- This park is really fun to come to and enjoy nature out here.

- Most of them look white.

- If we can get enough of those kids that are interested in maintaining our natural environment, well then we actually have a future.

[birds chirping] If it wasn't for the park, I think this would all be residential areas.

This is very valuable land.

To the east of us is Pirates Beach, just to the west of us is Jamaica Beach.

We have five different ecosystems here between the beach and the bay, and it's really good to preserve that for future generations.

[waves crashing] But when I came through, this was all underwater, and almost all of the greenery around here was killed.

We're trying to restore the native grasses here in the prairie.

- Coastal prairie is one of the most endangered habitats in North America.

Less than 1% of what used to exist in Texas remains.

To combat this, we're growing our own native plants in the greenhouses.

You can see this root system has come in very nicely.

Most of the prairie is located underground.

That's actually what holds this island together.

Without the root systems of these plants holding the soil in place, this whole island would basically wash away.

[gentle music] - RICK: What I find particularly attractive about Galveston Island State Park, amid all of this urban growth, there is this gem.

It really is a magical place.

[waves crashing] [wind blows] [upbeat guitar music] - DR. DONNA SHAVER: This is the Packery Channel.

It's in south Texas.

The Packery Channel divides Mustang Island on the north and North Padre Island on the south.

It is a very important habitat for juvenile green turtles.

My name is Dr. Donna Shaver and I'm chief of the division of sea turtle science and recovery at Padre Island National Seashore and I'm also the Texas coordinator of the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network.

People often times don't think about sea turtles being in our Texas Waters.

It's only been within about the last 20 years that our numbers have shot up.

[somber piano music] The green turtle was once commercially exploited in Texas.

They were captured and they were butchered in canneries right here in Texas.

The good news is though that the green turtle is rebounding in Texas, but we've got a moving target here of greatly increasing numbers of green turtles being found stranded in Texas each year.

Oh, I hope we can find this turtle Mac.

- MAC PURVIN: The call said just a while south of the uh.

- DR. SHAVER: Thank goodness somebody called it in.

- NARRATOR: Dr. Shaver, and marine biologist Mac Purvin are responsible of rescuing sea turtles on south Texas beaches, and they've been busier than ever.

- The Packery is of course like a great place for fishing and recreation.

We'll get a lot of entangled turtles.

These jetty rocks, they're perfect.

They're covered in algae.

The turtles love to eat the algae off of them.

They'll get stuck in the sea rocks themselves.

So that's the two main source of standings we're getting.

- Right in there.

Get this done quick.

The water's coming in.

Be careful.

- Yeah here it is.

- DR. SHAVER: Did we get it in time; is it alive?

- It's deceased unfortunately.

We've had record breaking months of stranding since May.

Uh, May, June, July, August we've broken every record.

- In a normal summer though, it's generally a slower time for our green turtle strandings.

- MAC: This year with the huge influx people aren't used to seeing this many turtles.

We weren't used to seeing this many turtles.

- DR. SHAVER: So, it's vital that Texans know that sea turtles are all threatened or endangered species.

We had to embark on a very intense educational effort.

It was all hands-on deck fire alarm.

We had to get out here quickly to initiate efforts.

- MAC: We had to get together pamphlets, educational materials.

We've been posting signage that lets people know not to touch the turtles or harass them in any way.

- If you see any turtles in distress, give us a call.

- MAC: We send down volunteers and park service representatives and we talk to the public out here.

- If I could give this to you.

- Yes ma'am.

- CAROL: If you see anything, please give us a call.

We appreciate your help.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- ANGLER: Have a good morning.

- CAROL: I come out in the mornings or on the weekends and I walk up and down the Packery Channel jetty on the southside looking for stranded turtles.

I'm finding more and more fishing line where it's been improperly disposed of.

This all creates a hazard for our turtles.

Sometimes I have to cut the line.

In the past you'd come down on low tide, you may see few, but you didn't see that many.

This year you can look every 10 feet and you may see 10, 20, sea, green sea turtles.

- MAC: Any sea turtle on the beach generally has something wrong with it.

Those are important to call us, collect, and bring over to rehabs.

- MAN: You got him.

Ok put him down.

- NARRATOR: Rehab partners like the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi, Texas work with Dr. Shaver's team to make sure the rescued turtles are healthy before they are released back into safe waters.

- JESSE GILBERT: This is the Texas State Aquarium's Wildlife rescue center in Corpus Christi, TX and this is one of the most robust centers in the state, where we take in marine mammals, sea turtles, and then shorebirds and raptors.

- JESSE: So, about a week ago, a large presumed male green sea turtle was found on Padre Island National Seashore.

It has a significant amount of monofilament around its right front flipper.

He's been here a week.

Showing some improvement.

He's got some fight to him which is really good.

I think prognosis is guarded whether or not we'll be able to keep that flipper intact or if we'll have to amputate it.

The good news is even with that flipper amputated that turtle most likely still be a candidate for release.

Typically, on a release day we get started about 7:00 in the morning.

Again, we'll clear the turtle.

We'll scan it, make sure it's the right turtle.

We then transport it to wherever it's going in a conditioned vehicle.

If it's in the winter, we kind of try to keep the vehicle the same temperature as the water so the animal isn't shocked when we get to the location.

- Amy smile!

- AMY: Ok!

- JESSE: From there it will either be transferred to a boat.

We go try a place that's nice and calm that has a lot of algae for the green sea turtles to eat.

Once we find that location, we've got some kind of secret locations where that, that really works out well.

We'll just release them from there.

[upbeat music] - MAN: [whistles] Look at that.

- WOMAN: I know.

- AMY: Yes!

- WOMAN: Nice.

- DR. SHAVER: Somebody that hasn't been to the Texas coast in 20 years, they're in for a treat because if you're patient and you watch you're going get to see green turtles swimming and being a green turtle.

Enjoy the beautiful resource we have of having a natural aquarium, green turtles swimming and enjoying our south Texas waters.

They can do it safely.

We can have a balance of people and turtles inhabiting this earth, but it requires education and some careful actions with our citizens.

[acoustic guitar music] - Look at this you guys.

[upbeat music] Cool.

Look Leo.

Texas offers so many different outdoor adventures, I would like to say, and that's why people come here.

That's why they want to move here, because we have whatever they want to see or do.

Oh, I want to go see mountains one day, I want to go to the coast the next day.

One, two, three, woo!

So, the population of Texas is changing quite a bit.

My family is representative of all different kinds of ethnicities, cultures, Native American, a little bit of African American in there with my grandson, Hispanic, LGTBQ community is also part of my family.

And then we have a grandson who's autistic, so that's what's important to me, is to make sure that going forward, as my grandkids grow and the parks grow and the population of Texas grows, that we continue to keep that in mind as that's part of what we do at Texas Parks and Wildlife, to make sure that all people feel welcome.

- Got any questions, you good?

- When someone comes to a state park, we don't want him to see that everyone is of the same color, everyone speaks the same language, everything is just this equal everything.

[speaking foreign languages] - Is this anybody's first time to the park?

- WOMAN: Yes.

- MONSTE: That can be intimidating, you go into somewhere, not speaking that language, not knowing that culture.

And it can be scary.

And the nature of the outdoors on their own can already be scary for some people.

- So, this is race, ethnicity, agency and article six comparisons.

So, diversity, equity and inclusion is a big buzz word that maybe not everybody understands what that means.

And so, it just means that you're trying to make your workplace or whatever place that you're at look a little more diverse in thought, in ethnicity, in gender, in ability, in age.

- So, we've got to make sure that folks can see a little bit of everybody in the public when they go out and visit, either our parks, our wildlife management areas or even if they come to our headquarters and visit with folks, they see somebody that they can relate to.

And we've changed, our state has changed quite a bit, and we've learned that we have to morph along with the state if we're going to remain relevant to the broader population.

- From my perspective, from a recruitment manager, again, more work to do.

- We work a lot with our H.R.

department developing strategies around how we can recruit from this diaspora of folks.

We recognize that it takes a lot of different insights, a lot of different thoughts in order to do our work well and to make sure that we're engaging with all of the public across the state of Texas.

- Hi, Jonathan.

How are you today?

One of our strategies is to use virtual platforms to reach students.

But if you're looking to stay around Prairie View, there's probably some job opportunities around there.

That's part of it, trying to help them understand that, yes, you can come work here, but you can also work in human resources, or you can work in our legal division or you can work in support resources or infrastructure.

I mean, there's just so many different ways that people can get a job here.

So, tell you what, I'm going to follow up with you, I'll send you the link to that job.

- One of the things I always share with folks is we don't need diversity and inclusion so that we can look like our community, we need diversity and inclusion so we can relate to our community, and that's what we want to do.

That's what we think is very important to be able to relate to the folks that we serve.

And we serve all of Texas, not just certain parts of Texas.

So, that's what we want to do.

- All people, that is the two words that are most important to me, all people.

Everyone can bring something to the table.

It's up to me to help those hiring managers get those people.

That's what my job is, is to go out and say, okay, here's your applicant pool and I've tried to make it as diverse as possible so that you can pick the best one.

And if it's a diverse candidate that's never worked here, great, that's the icing on the cake.

If we've introduced somebody else to what a great place this is to work.

[hand clapping] And me personally, I just want to make sure that my kids and my grandkids have those same opportunities that I have because I work here.

[laughing] And so, I represent just one of the no telling how many families in Texas that are like mine.

[waves crashing] [waves crashing] [birds calling] [waves crashing] [waves crashing] [waves crashing] [crickets chirping] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [waves crashing] - 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.