- 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... - A lot of people have never caught a walleye.

And most of the time you got to go way north.

No, we got that right here in the panhandle.

- We're here to conduct Texas Game Warden Dive Team testing and evaluations.

- It's a common misconception that javelina are pigs, or that they're really closely related to pigs, when in fact they are not.

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

[upbeat music] [water lapping] - It's around 9:00 AM in the morning on Lake Meredith.

We're headed out of the harbor here.

We'll hit a few points and take a look and see what we can find, see if we can catch a few fish.

We don't have a lot of water in the Panhandle as far as lakes, and this is the largest body of water in the Texas Panhandle.

People can actually get out here and you don't feel overcrowded in this area.

So a lot of people get here just to get away from crowds.

What I'm looking for is these arcs like this.

This is usually walleye.

- NARRATOR: Jeff Alexander... - Get you hooked up with a minnow here.

- NARRATOR: is taking MacKenna, one of his two daughters, out fishing for walleye.

- Here's that one, MacKenna.

So I grew up here as a kid pretty much on this body of water.

Fantastic memories as a kid to a dad, and now, you know, I'm passing on the fishing tradition to my daughters.

- I'm fishing, like, dropping it down to the bottom and reeling back up and seeing if one of them won't come up and just grab it.

[fishing line whirring] Did you get stuck?

- I did.

As a big kid, I love to catch fish.

Don't know what I got stuck in.

But when a child or, or another kid catches fish, you really get excited and you enjoy watching the fight and everything that goes.

MacKenna, are you doing that or is that a fish?

Fish on.

- MACKENNA: Whoa.

- JEFF: Just take your time.

[water splashing] I just like to be on the boat with her, but yeah, when she catches a fish and gets to reel one in like that, it's a bonus.

I love it.

Healthy little fish.

My heart, you know, is good when I get to see things like that.

- He tapped a few times before I finally set the hook.

- NARRATOR: It turns out, - JEFF: Got a little walleye.

- NARRATOR: Lake Meredith is the best place to catch walleye in Texas.

- A lot of people will have never caught a walleye.

And most of the time you gotta go way north.

You gotta go to Minnesota or, or Wisconsin or something.

- MACKENNA: I was letting it sit there, but I let it tug a few times.

- JEFF: No, we actually have that here in the Amarillo area, right here in the Panhandle, Lake Meredith.

We've got walleye and a good population of 'em.

- NARRATOR: To make sure there are plenty of walleye here, fisheries biologists travel to Lake Meredith every spring.

With a whole bunch of 'em.

- Today, we're gonna be stocking about 450,000 walleye fry.

They're gonna arrive in boxes.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 80,000 to 100,000 fish per box.

- These are approximately five-day-old walleye fry.

[bag rustling] They have just hatched out of the eggs, so tiny fish.

We receive the eggs from the state of Colorado, they actually spawn them.

Eventually, the fry will hatch and then we send them out and we stock them all over West Texas, including Lake Meredith.

- CALEB: Pretty nice day.

Just a little bit breezy so far.

We're here at Cedar Canyon Boat Ramp heading out to stock some walleye fry.

[upbeat music] Those little frys are just a perfect little snack.

And so we try and get 'em out here in the open water.

It gives 'em more of a fighting chance.

We're getting ready to float these walleye eggs, and what we're gonna do is open these boxes, take the bags out, tie 'em together in a string, just tying a little overhand slip knot.

We'll tie those ropes onto the boat.

And then we'll sit out here and drift around for 20, 30, 40 minutes, however long it takes for the water temperature in the bags to be equal to the lake temperature.

Take a real quick water temperature to see if we're close to releasing these fish.

Water temperature right now is 12 degrees Celsius.

We're release them here pretty soon.

Being up in the Panhandle, and our elevation being up on top of the Caprock, our water temperatures are cold enough in the winter that walleye can spawn.

Pull these fry bags in.

It's just a good mix of environment and habitat for a walleye to survive.

Take a look at these fry and make sure they look healthy.

And they do, we see lots of live fish.

We'll just gently pour those fish out, and you see that gray cloud there?

That's the, that's the fry.

[gentle music] - Hey.

There it is.

- I bring her out here all the time.

Like a good fish too.

Not always do we catch a lot of fish, but the thing is, is just the time together.

Hooked up again.

Good smiles, good family time, and we got some great pictures and memories to go home.

Another walleye.

You get your fingers down in there, you'll find you a nice row of teeth.

[gentle music] That's another unique thing to this lake, is the canyon and the canyon walls, you can see the color of the red clay.

People come here and they talk about it looks almost like going to the Grand Canyon, with the colors and things that they see here.

[fishing line whips] A lot of fish coming through there.

- It's nice just because it's quiet.

Like, your mind's kind of clear and this is all you're thinking about is sitting here.

It's peaceful.

- JEFF: Always enjoy having time with my kids.

- I really like in a fish, that it's fighting back.

- JEFF: Spending time on this body of water catching fish.

- MACKENNA: Do you wanna net it?

Please and thank you?

- JEFF: To get to see her reel a few in and the smiles that it brought on her face.

- That was a lot coming up.

- JEFF: Knowing that she had a good day and I had a good day watching.

Just a great day.

[lively music] ♪ ♪ - PADDLER: Woo!

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [birds chirping] [upbeat music] - DR. GANN: The Chaparral WMA was acquired in 1969.

It's designated as the research and demonstration site for the South Texas ecosystem.

It's about 15,200 acres and is mixed brush, tama leaf and forage scrub.

[birds singing] All the WMAs in Texas have different primary purposes.

Our primary goal and purpose is to conduct research, facilitate research, and disseminate the results of that research.

- NARRATOR: This morning at the Chaparral, a team of Texas A&M graduate students are starting a new research project.

Their study is focused on a short, stocky, snouted animal that calls this brush country home.

The javelina.

- DR. GANN: It's a common misconception that javelina are pigs, or that they're really closely related to pigs, when in fact, they are not.

They belong to their own family, which is really unique.

- NARRATOR: Javelinas are also known as collared peccary.

The collar refers to the white band of hair around its neck.

And unlike feral hogs, javelinas are actually native to Texas.

[gentle music] - STUDENT: This is the site where we saw a lot of the activity last night.

From the pictures, it kind of looks like they're coming from this direction.

- We're at the Chaparral Wildlife Management Area because it's got a long and rich history in terms of javelina research.

They started collecting data 50-plus years ago, mainly in terms of harvest data.

But they've also been involved in some intensive research projects.

- DR. GANN: It's almost coming full circle now, that we're able to expand upon the original data and the original research, bring attention to the species, and hopefully bring more support and interest to the species.

- As part of this study, there's three primary objectives.

That's to determine, how do we survey, encounter javelina, what habitats are they using, and what does the populations look like?

Are they increasing, decreasing, or stable?

Our current efforts have us setting traps so that we can capture javelina.

- So we've been preparing for about a week now.

Once we have a javelina coming onto the corn, that's when we start building the corral.

[pounder clanking] - STUDENT: This camera is going to give us live photos and also a live feed of the trap.

- DR. WEBB: After capture, we'll fit 'em with tracking devices so that we can follow their movements and determine their habitat use.

- All right, let's test the gate with the app.

All clear.

[trap clatters] Looks like we're good to go.

- NARRATOR: After the trap is set, it's a waiting game back at the bunkhouse.

[dramatic music] - Come on, come a little farther.

Okay, if there's two in there, can I drop?

- Let's, I would get three.

- Come on.

Oh, there's a fourth one coming.

I'm gonna grab him too.

- DR. WEBB: If we got four and they're all adults, let's go ahead and drop it.

[trap clanking] - Okay.

They're trapped.

- Got 'em.

- STUDENT: Okay, we got four.

- DR. WEBB: Now that we've hit the button and the animals are trapped, it really becomes go time.

(whispering) You got three that would probably work.

- STUDENT: Yeah, especially those front two.

- DR. WEBB: These two right here?

- STUDENT: Yeah.

-DR. WEBB: All right then.

We caught four javelina.

We ran two into the chute.

We got 'em immobilized and so they're just now going down to sleep.

So within a few minutes we'll be able to go in there and start our workup of 'em.

[javelina snoring] [javelina snoring] - DR. WEBB: As part of our workup, we take a number of body measurements.

That way we can track their growth.

We put GPS colors on 'em to track 'em.

We put ear tags on 'em.

We also take biological samples and we use those for disease testing or genetic analyses.

Our goals are to put the tracking devices on 'em so we can follow their movement, but we're also interested in their overall nutrition and health.

So a lot of the measurements and samples we take will tell us a lot about how well they're doing in the South Texas environment.

- Not lactating, right?

- She was.

- She was?

- STUDENT: Yep, she's definitely pregnant.

[upbeat music] - NARRATOR: Fitted with the GPS caller, the javelinas are released back into the wild where the research team will be able to track their movements and continue their study.

[upbeat music] - DR. WEBB: The GPS tracking devices will send us data on a daily basis so we can really follow these javelina in almost real time.

- NARRATOR: The more we learn about javelinas, the better we'll be at managing these unique native Texans.

- DR. GANN: They're worth studying.

They're worth the attention.

And they're worth the effort that we're gonna put into finding out this information.

Javelina are such an iconic species in Texas and it feels good to be a part of something so special.

[gentle dramatic music] ♪ ♪ [wind blowing] There are more ways than ever to help Texas Parks and Wildlife protect the outdoors through the Conservation License Plate program.

More than nine million dollars has been generated from the sale of these plates, funding wildlife research and big game restoration, protecting native species and their habitats, studying fish populations to improve Texas fishing... - GUIDE: How ya like that?!

...improving state parks through reforestation and other projects.

- VOLUNTEER: We got one!

- WOMAN: Yes, yes!

[honk, honk] Every plate on a car, truck, trailer or motorcycle means more money to support wild things and wild places in Texas.

[wind blowing] [radio chatter] [emergency vehicle siren] - MAN: No, I'm not going to jail.

I told you I'm not going to jail.

- OFFICER: Can we talk to him for a minute?

Since his boat's not here, we wanna make sure it didn't have an accident out there, there's nobody else hurt or in danger right now.

So if you don't mind, we're gonna talk to him for a minute?

- MAN: For what?

- OFFICER: Were you alone in the boat?

- No, I had, my buddy's out there somewhere.

- JESSICA: How many buddies?

- MAN: One.

- See he's right there, but where's Tim?

- Okay, what does Tim look like?

- JESSICA: Was he screaming, yelling?

- NARRATOR: The story you're watching is not an actual emergency.

- Which direction did it come from?

- NARRATOR: This is a drill.

The officers here hope to join the elite Game Warden Dive Team.

- Going on, how long was the boat out?

When did y'all get a call?

- NARRATOR: They're being tested on their skills.

- CAPT.

BROWN: We're here at the Blue Lagoon to conduct Texas Game Warden Dive Team testing and evaluations of the applicants, and ultimately selecting future team members.

- NARRATOR: Jessica Malone is one of the applicants.

- You know, I'm just really excited 'cause the game wardens had all of the special teams and now they've opened it up to park officers, so now we get to show our experiences so I'm proud to represent us and join the dive team and I'm super-excited about all the different things that we can do, and all the different people we can help and meet.

Hey, how are you?

- Captain Clint Brown.

- Nice to finally meet you.

- Yeah, you too.

You too.

Welcome, welcome.

You're gonna have multiple challenges coming your way.

You need to work as a team.

Essentially, you are the Texas Game Warden Dive Team.

The Texas Game Warden Dive Team essentially responds across the state to various requests and needs, primarily for recovery efforts of drowning victims.

About 99% of the time, we're diving in conditions where you cannot see.

So it really takes a special person to stick your head underwater and not be able to see anything and be able to get a task or a job done.

But we also do evidence searches, vehicle recovery, and a whole host of different things that might come into play.

Our motivation really, is trying to bring closure to that family as quickly as possible.

[water sloshing] - So we are here at the Huntsville pool.

Today are the tryouts.

The water's gonna be cold, so we're gonna see what we can get done.

Lots of breaks.

They have a little heater for us.

Hopefully, the sun warms up fast.

[laughing] - I'm gonna give you all about 10 or 15 minutes or so to stretch it out.

Do whatever you need to get ready.

- Do y'all have the time?

I'm not ready to go.

[laughing] - Swimmers ready?

Start.

- CAPT.

BROWN: The level of difficulty, I would say, for the applicants, can be somewhat stressful.

Even a 25 meter underwater swim can be challenging for a lot of different people.

You definitely have to do your work to be prepared for it.

- This is the 25 meter underwater swim without surfacing.

So you're gonna start here at the wall.

Main thing you wanna focus on is a good push off.

- CAPT.

BROWN: We don't have a set number of positions for the team.

We have to make certain we find the right fit for the team.

- You're gonna complete a one-minute breath-hold under water.

- CAPT.

BROWN: So there's a scenario in which no one makes it, but there's also a situation where all of them make it.

And that is part of our job this weekend, is to ensure that we evaluate them thoroughly.

- Woo.

[laughing] - Good job.

Way to push through.

- It's what I expected.

I mean, this is what they sent out to practice on.

The next is the 20-minute tread.

And if you're a floater, just hang out and talk to everyone the whole time.

[group laughing] - CAPT.

SPITZER: Actually, everybody's doing really well.

Everybody has passed everything so far.

- All right guys, you got one minute.

- CAPT.

BROWN: Really what we're trying to evaluate is whether or not they're fit and they're capable and have the ability to be a good teammate.

- All right, time.

- Good job, guys.

- Good job.

[group laughing] - We're gonna have like a good break and then we're going to the other pool 'cause it's deeper.

I know there's going to be where we have to do a surface dive down to get a brick, bring it back up and then place it back down.

[water gurgling] - I'm Jessica Malone, 4863, Goose Island State Park.

[water splashing] [pen scribbling] - JESSICA: There's an underwater breathing without a mask, with a regulator.

[water bubbling] - Five, four, three, two, one.

Time.

Come on up.

[water splashing] - That was it?

That's the fastest five minutes of my life.

[Jessica laughing] - All right, I'm gonna give you one minute to study this template.

- Okay?

- All right.

- INSTRUCTOR: That piece is gonna be one piece.

- Okay.

And there's a cognitive test where you have a blacked out mask, have to perform some type of task.

Don't know what it's gonna be, so that'll always be fun.

- CAPT.

BROWN: All right, whenever you're ready.

[water splashing] [Rebecca] I've been diving where there's no light and so you're used to having darkness, but now you have to perform a task, whatever task they tell you.

And not knowing what that is can be a little nerve-wracking.

But I mean, remain calm and try and get it done.

I don't think there's any time limit on it either, so just do it.

- So this is the one you just completed and this was the template, and it is correct.

Good job.

Congratulations.

- Super-exciting.

Passed everything today.

My chances are pretty good.

I brought everything I could to the table.

It's ultimately the team's decision if they want me or not.

So fingers crossed.

I have an experience with diving.

The water is my second home.

I also have a background with people who have passed away.

and my father was a mortician.

I could ask questions and I understood it a little bit differently, but I also lost friends and family members.

And with that, I know what it means to have closure if you lose someone.

And so that's why I chose to join the Dive Team.

I get to use my skills as a diver, but I also get to use my skills and empathy to those family members to find their loved one and bring them back so they have closure.

[indistinct chatter] - JESSICA: Made the Dive Team.

[indistinct chatter] And I can't wait to start working with them.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music] - NARRATOR: To celebrate 40 years of our television series, we are taking a trip back in time to look at some of our earliest episodes.

♪ ♪ - EDITH SCOTT: I can remember the itchiness, just all over.

- I picked two little flowers.

And I put some on me and I didn't know it was poison ivy.

- If you are allergic to it, you might get something like a rash.

- NARRATOR: Poison ivy can be a ground cover or a vine.

It's found everywhere in Texas, but particularly in wooded areas and along creek banks.

All outdoor enthusiasts need to know how to identify it.

- The main characteristic for identifying poison ivy is the fact that the poison ivy always has three leaflets per leaf.

Each leaf, which consists of three leaflets, is attached to the main stem, alternately, one leaf at a time.

As opposed to the box elder, which frequently has three leaflets per leaf.

But the main distinction is that the box elder leaves are attached to the main stem two at a time.

That is oppositely along the stem.

- NARRATOR: Poison ivy affects its victim with a toxic oil that combines with skin proteins.

This combination can happen as quickly as within 45 seconds after contact.

And once it occurs, it's impossible to wash the toxin away.

The oil can be carried on clothing, on the fur of pets, and even in the air if the plant is burned.

Do not burn poison ivy.

To remove the plant, clip it at the root.

- It was itching and the first thing I saw was right there.

- NARRATOR: Caladryl lotion is used to relieve the itching, while calamine dries out the blisters.

In more severe cases, patients can receive cortisone shots.

- Mother had a little verse that she would, would recite to us.

She said, "A plant that has leaves of three, let it be."

[wind blowing] [wind blowing] [insects chirping] [insects chirping] [insects chirping] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [insects chirping] [wind blowing] [insects chirping] [insects chirping] [birds singing] [wind blowing] [insects chirping] 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.