- 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 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.

Funding also provided by Academy Sports and Outdoors.

Helping hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts of all ages get outside.

Out here, fun can't lose.

[theme music] - ANNOUNCER: Coming up on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - It's just one of those magical things in the animal kingdom that an insect lights up.

I mean, how amazing is that.

- It takes a lot of practice and a lot of patience.

Self-patience to learn how to fly these darn things.

- Out here we see the mule deer, elk, blue quail, javelina, quite an assortment.

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

♪ ♪ [crickets chirping] [bright music] - When you were younger, do you remember seeing fireflies in the spring and early summer?

Well, we still have fireflies in Texas, and if you're lucky enough to have the right habitat, you can see them even in your yard.

One interesting fact, a firefly is not actually a fly.

- Fireflies are not flies.

They are in fact beetles and they belong to the family Lampyridae.

They get confused for flies because they fly around, but no, fireflies are beetles.

Fireflies light up as a form of sexual communication.

It's males that are really trying to signal to females, and they're trying to be the brightest and have the longest flashes in order to impress the females.

And the females are looking at those flashes and responding to that different variation in male flash timing and picking the best and the brightest in order to mate with.

Fireflies in Texas are around about 90% of the state, believe it or not.

They occur all across different eco regions in the state and you can find them down south towards the coast, South Texas.

Some of the highest concentrations are in East Texas and Central Texas.

- NATASIA: Most fireflies prefer environments that are warm, humid, and wet.

But if you look carefully, you can find them in some locations you might not expect them to be.

- That's cool.

- Yeah.

- The adults look a lot like that.

Today, we are at Chinati State Natural Area, and it's a site that doesn't get a lot of attention, but it's a location that has a lot of really unique habitats.

We're looking for an endemic species of firefly that's only found in West Texas.

So we've set up a black light here.

We're gonna have that run tonight.

Some of the fireflies that we're after will come to UV light and we'll wait till it gets dark and wait for the the fireflies to start flashing.

[crickets chirping] We're out with the Xerxes Society for Invertebrate Conservation to try and add more observations of the species and just learn more about its life history, its flash patterns, and really just trying to learn more about what the species requires as far as habitat in West Texas.

- It's been amazing just the diversity of invertebrates and insects and the community of firefly species that we find here.

The mix of firefly species is really totally different than other parts of the country.

It's really exciting to get to know these species better.

[bright music] - You might have fireflies in your own backyard, but you need to take some steps to protect them.

- Pesticides do kill insects and it's important to identify what kind of pesticides are going into your property.

And one of the things you can do with your local pest control company, if you don't wanna eliminate pesticides completely, is to have an active role in telling them where you want them to spray.

If you let them choose where they're gonna spray, they might just go ahead and like spray everything and kill out any beneficial insects that might be in your property.

So it's really important to just say, "Hey, I want you to only to spray on my foundation and don't spray on any native or wild areas that are surrounding my house.

If we're a little bit conscious and thoughtful about how we apply those pesticides, it can go really far to help fireflies, but other beneficial insects as well.

- NATASIA: When you limit your use of pesticides, you help a whole range of pollinators like native bees, butterflies, and one pollinator you might not know about, moths.

- ROSS: They're like moving the sheet.

There's so many of them.

- Yeah, like they're just, like all hanging onto the branches.

I've never seen them in such abundance though.

- ROSS: Yeah, I've never seen this many... ever.

I don't know which species it is.

We're not entirely sure which species it is.

So yesterday, we found what could be a new species.

- Look how tiny we had.

- ROSS: Tiny, tiny wings.

- RESEARCHER: He's so little.

Oh my God, she's awesome.

- ROSS: There's been so little work done in this part of the state.

They're also difficult to distinguish between the species, so we'll get it off to an expert and get their opinion on its status.

[upbeat music] - BEN: So what are some of the things that you can do to help fireflies?

If you've got a yard, one of the things that you can do is start planting native plants.

And the reason why that's really helpful is it helps retain soil moisture.

If you can introduce a water feature to your yard, you can help dampen any light pollution that is coming off of your property.

Light pollution for fireflies is bad because it prevents them from being able to communicate with each other.

If they can't communicate with each other, then they can't basically mate and produce offspring.

So we really wanna create as dark a habitat as possible to help fireflies.

- So what we do, we don't ever use any pesticides, we don't mow very often, but we do let the leaf litter accumulate on the ground, especially within our native section we have in the back.

We have all these native plants around here to help encourage the pollinators.

And then whenever we trim our trees, we put the actual limbs inside our little bunched areas and let those kind of decompose so that that rotten wood can actually be some nutrients and housing for some other insects.

We kind of allow nature to grow from the bottom up by leaving it alone.

- A leaf litter serves a lot of purposes for fireflies.

It's usually the place where the larva are gonna be present.

And this kind of leaf litter that occurs in your yard or in a natural habitat is fireflies' home.

It provides habitat for the larvae, but also for the food that fireflies eat as well.

So snails, slugs, worms, little insects.

As larvae, they're incredibly predacious.

And when they're crawling along the forest floor, this is where they're gonna find that food.

So by encouraging leaf litter to build up in a habitat, we're helping fireflies.

[gentle music] - I have a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old, and to see their faces whenever they go and catch the fireflies, that's just joy for everyone.

- It's really fascinating how they just glow when they're... Like we see one here.

Oh wait, there's another one over there.

We zigzag around the place.

It's beautiful.

- And they're really cool since they have lights.

It's basically the only bug that has a light, and it's really cool.

- BEN: It's just one of those magical things in the animal kingdom that an insect lights up.

I mean, how amazing is that?

[crickets chirping] - This way?

- Yeah.

[RC plane engine revving] - Ready?

- Yeah.

[revving continues] - Well, this is Lake Whitney State Park.

We're about 30, 35 miles north of Waco.

We're out here at the old airport.

And so now the RC Club and other people that like to fly RC that come down to visit have this facility to use for flying models.

[engine revving] [upbeat music] - The runway is perfect.

It's an asphalt runway.

It gives us plenty of room for takeoff and landings.

And then you have all the members.

They're just so great.

They're all like family.

[Jim laughing] - JIM: Are you gonna fly that twin today?

- I'm gonna try.

- Did you get throttles fixed?

- We actually have to assemble or build the airplane.

This is tank here is actually smoke for a smoke system.

Just needs a good pilot to fly it.

[laughs] [rock music playing] Once you get it completed, your heart rate really goes up.

You get to see what you put together, you know, in flight.

[engine revving] ♪ ♪ - PILOT: It takes a lot of practice and a lot of self-patience to learn how to play these darn things.

♪ ♪ - The very first one I built took me about three months to build.

My flight lasted 30 seconds or less.

And I crashed.

And so I had to take a step back and get a trainer and take baby steps to learn to fly.

[rock music playing] [plane engine revving] ♪ ♪ [plane engine revving] - JIM: I had to basically teach myself how to fly, because I didn't have anybody to teach me.

So we had a few accidents along the way.

But once I learned how to fly it, it was like being free.

[rock music playing] And we're off!

♪ ♪ - Yes, you're welcome to take a look.

Yep.

Actually, the ignition for the engine, this is the battery that runs that ignition.

I have a pump right here.

It's actually coming off the smoke tank.

Now that I'm at this point that I get to share all that with, hopefully, some new blood at some point, getting into the hobby, it just makes you feel good.

Okay, I will remember that.

Actually what I'll do, I'll see if I can get some stickers and put his name, like... [all laughing] - That would be fun.

- How about that?

- Yeah.

- How about that, I'll do that.

Lansley.

You got it.

- RICARDO: We build them from the ground up.

You watch it go from zero to 140 miles an hour.

It just feels good to see the end product.

♪ ♪ - WAYNE: The first flight was, I was quite tense.

Of course you got onlookers and all that, even though I guess I would call myself an experienced pilot.

Your heart rate goes up, and when you get it up in the air and you perform, it's just a good feeling.

Good, clean fun.

♪ ♪ [gentle music] - LOU: There's my dad.

- That's your dad?

- Mm-hmm.

[Tim chuckles] - He looks like he's, what about two?

So, it would've been 1932.

My grandparents bought this ranch in 1930.

I'm Lou Cowden-Edwards, and we are on the Cowden Ranch in the north end of Jeff Davis County in far west Texas.

[gentle music] [chains clanking] [gentle music] - We've been married 35 years, and it's works great.

We know each other's strengths, we know each other's weaknesses.

[rock crunching] - LOU: Tim's a great worker.

He's a good delegator too.

[laughs] - TIM: Out here, we see the mule deer, elk, blue quail, coyotes, javelina, bobcats, mountain lions.

Quite an assortment.

- LOU: There are just too many things to love.

I love the animals that are here.

I love the cattle that we've raised.

The goal is preservation and preserving everything that lives here.

[cows moo] It's organized pretty well as using it for pasturage or for livestock.

- TIM: There's about 35 miles of pipeline on this ranch.

When it starts getting hot, you start getting airlocks.

You've gotta run your line every day.

[water spattering] - LOU: My father put in many, many miles of pipeline to have water everywhere.

There's a lot of maintenance, and Tim and I also have been replacing water lines.

And Tim shoveled out a two-mile ditch all by himself.

- TIM: Our rainy season is iffy at best.

We always have to make sure that the cattle have water, that the wildlife have water.

The guzzlers, that was an experiment because we wanted to get water up high.

And in the last five years, we've had so many aoudad move in, that even when those things fill up, those aoudad will drink 'em down overnight.

- LOU: Thirty years ago, they were just barely a blip, and now, you know, they'll move into an area and they'll just camp out there.

- They're definitely a nuisance.

And I mean, they are tearing up the landscape and you can just see in parts of West Texas, just mountains are just completely peeled.

They compete with our bighorn sheep and mule deer for diet and for space.

Tim and Lou do a really good job of controlling those populations and they see that as a holistic approach.

- TIM: Those are deer tracks right here and then right there.

Maintenance is main part of ranching.

I tell people I'm in charge of maintenance 'cause that's pretty much what I do.

- OLIVIA: It's really just Tim and Lou who are on this ranch doing everything, and they pour their heart and soul in it.

And so, I think that's what makes it really special, is the love that they have for this landscape.

- LOU: Look at that!

[laughs] - Look at Guadalupe Peak over there.

[gentle guitar music] - LOU: You can't have a place like this and not share it.

You know, you have people come here and they look around and they go, "Wow, this is just so beautiful."

- TIM: The funnest thing we do is the Texas Parks and Wildlife Youth Hunt, and we've been doing it for eight years, I believe.

I think that's right.

And it's the funnest hunt we do, to see the excitement in those kids.

And we have kids that have never shot anything before, and they just light up like a Christmas tree.

- OLIVIA: We've had kids that have never hunted before and they're shooting a mule deer buck for the first time, and not knowing that there's elk in Texas or seen Montezuma Quail.

So, it's really cool, especially for these kids from San Antonio, Houston, who don't even know that we have mountains in Texas.

- LOU: That's mine and Tim's favorite hunt.

And it's amazing, you know, that people see what you see.

- TIM: Just every day is a new day, and it's a blessed day.

There's not a day that Lou and I don't say we're truly blessed to be here.

- LOU: Since I was a small girl, I kept imagining that I would live here, make my living here.

So, I guess I'm just kinda living my dream.

I can't think of a better place to go to work every day.

[gentle guitar music] [water sloshing] [eerie music] - TIM BISTER: People just love Caddo Lake.

Caddo Lake gets in your blood.

It's like a prehistoric environment with the Bald Cypress trees and the Spanish Moss hanging down.

It's beautiful and people love it.

When it's under attack like this, it really alarms people.

This is a wetland of international significance.

And we're involved in a desperate fight to save it from this most aggressive plant in the world.

[eerie music] - Giant salvinia is a threat to Caddo Lake.

[boat engine starts] I'm Tim Bister, and I'm a fisheries biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Caddo Lake is known as the only natural lake in Texas.

So it is one of our gems that we really want to be able to protect.

Giant salvinia is a floating aquatic fern from South America.

It grows very rapidly.

It can actually double in size in four to seven days.

Giant salvinia first showed up in Caddo Lake in 2006, on the Louisiana side, at one of the boat ramps.

[boat engine roaring] The worst year that we've had, there was about 6,000 acres of giant salvinia covering the Texas side of Caddo Lake.

That's about half of the water that we have.

There were areas that were so completely covered by giant salvinia and the plants growing on top of the salvinia mats, that it looked like dry land.

The main river channel that travels through Caddo Lake was completely covered by giant salvinia.

There were many areas that you couldn't get a boat through.

There were lots of people that were very concerned about the lake.

And it was a year that growth was so bad, it just really wasn't a lot that could be done.

[boat engine revs] - JOHN: You can see where they've sprayed.

There's lots of dead.

Dead is good.

I'm Jonathan Dyson.

I'm an Aquatic Invasive Species Biologist.

This is an area where we sprayed.

State contractors had come in here and done some herbicide treatments on this, and it really pushed the salvinia back.

And then we're using a combination of both the systemic herbicide that will circulate throughout the plant, as well as a contact herbicide that just burns wherever it touches.

It's still slowly, slowly dying, falling out.

What green plant is alive, our contractors are coming in and spraying.

[engine revs up] - TIM: The best strategy for invasive species management is using an integrated approach.

Using as many tools in your toolbox to control a situation.

- We've been using a combination of herbicides here recently with great success in the management of the species, and being able to maintain the open water.

In addition to that, we've been trying for well over a decade now, of using bio-control.

The giant salvinia weevil.

It's a species-specific weevil, just feeds on giant salvinia and can control it.

We've seen control out here in several places.

Parks and Wildlife raises and releases their own weevils, but we really need a lot of people doing that.

And here recently, the Caddo Bio Control Alliance has stepped up in releasing large numbers of weevils to help with this control.

- We are in Uncertain, Texas at Caddo Lake.

And what we are doing is raising giant salvinia weevils to control the giant salvinia plant.

The invasive aquatic plant, that is trying to take over Caddo Lake.

We wanted to build this greenhouse, mass produce these weevils, and get them out onto the water in large numbers, as we can.

We're Weevil Ranchers.

These are the tanks where we grow the giant salvinia.

We introduced the weevils onto the salvinia here in a controlled environment.

We raise them.

And when the population gets to the right level, we actually take the salvinia from here, put it into totes, go out to where the giant salvinia is, and release these weevils into the environment.

It's hot, hard work.

This greenhouse, in the summertime, is extremely hot.

And Texas summers, you know, the temperature gets up over 100 degrees.

It takes people who really love the environment, who love the lake, and love the area, to give so much time, and work, and effort, and sweat to protect the lake.

- Morning!

How y'all doin'?

- All these are going on the pontoon, right?

- JOHN: A lot of those people are the local people that live and utilize the lake out here.

They care because they live out here.

They're out here every day, and this is their home.

They pour their heart and soul into managing this salvinia in the lake to keep it from taking over.

- Oh, it's beautiful.

And the water... Since the grass has died, the water's perfect all over the lake to fish.

It's a great place.

It's a magical lake.

Isn't it, Leah?

[laughing] - JOHN: I think the future of Caddo is bright.

I think a lot of people are going to be able to enjoy the lake like they always did, like the good old days they talked about.

It's extremely brittle, but something was eating on it.

But we are seeing evidence of either a moth larva, or the weevil damage itself.

- TIM: It is frustrating having an invasive species that just won't go away, knowing that no matter what we do, we're never going to get rid of the giant salvinia at Caddo Lake.

But I do have the hope that our efforts are going to help continue to keep boaters having the ability to get around the lake, to have anglers still have their places that they like to fish.

Native plants will come back.

Fish will be able to use more of the lake.

Ducks will have open water to land on.

It's all tied together.

[birds chirping] - NARRATOR: Next time on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - The ovens came west with the pioneers.

It's a quick and easy way to use the coals from your fire to make an oven out of a pot.

- I am the fourth generation, and I think that's really special that through all the hard times and hardships, we were able to keep it together as a working ranch.

- I like to challenge myself in a lot of situations to test my limits and see what I can do.

[theme music] - NARRATOR: That's next time on Texas Parks & Wildlife.

[turkeys call and gobble] [turkeys call and gobble] [turkeys call and gobble] [turkeys call and gobble] [turkeys call and gobble] [turkeys call and gobble] [turkeys call and gobble] [turkeys call and gobble] - 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 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.

Funding also provided by Academy Sports and Outdoors.

Helping hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts of all ages get outside.

Out here, fun can't lose.