- 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 is provided by Toyota.

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

Toyota -- Let's Go Places.

- NARRATOR: Coming up on Texas Parks and Wildlife... - When we gather around something we caught, that's a really cool feeling.

- Because these mountain ranges are isolated, you sometimes get species that evolve that are unique to those habitats.

- I do the yucky stuff so that they can get out and do their job about protecting the resources of Texas.

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

[seagulls squawking] - SID: I grew up loving the outdoors.

Being out in the water is definitely my happy place.

Feeling the sun on your face and the salt in the air.

Making my way down to the dock, I finally feel like I'm in my element.

Finally relax a little bit, and catching fish is just icing on the cake from there.

- DAVID: All right, showtime, Sid.

[boat motor revs] [motor running] I'm going to take you up into this bay... - SID: Okay.

- ...where we got a little bit more salinity.

Try targeting some reds and flounder.

Hopefully we'll get a couple for you for dinner.

- Nice, all right, let's do it.

- Ready to roll?

- Yeah.

[seagulls squawking] You think we should, maybe hit up the shoreline right here?

- DAVID: Yeah.

If we're going to catch redfish, it's going to be up and down the rocks.

[upbeat music] - SID: What you looking for, Buddy?

I know you want to see a fish.

I'm going to do my best.

♪ ♪ Fish on.

- DAVID: You got it?

- Yep.

You got a net, David?

I can't wait.

Oh!

- DAVID: Yeah, there we go.

- SID: Oh, my God.

That's a good fish.

- DAVID: This is the fight we've been waiting for.

Come home to Mama.

There we go.

- SID: Whoa.

Finny!

He's happy.

- DAVID: Go, Sid, woo!

That's a good fish right there.

♪ ♪ - [cheers] Right at 28.

Good job, Sid.

[both laugh] All right.

Got you a little something for supper.

I'm going to grab a couple of pics.

♪ ♪ Think you're inviting him over for dinner, huh?

- SID: Yeah.

♪ ♪ - DAVID: All right, Sid.

What are you going to do when the lights turn on?

Ready to roll?

- SID: Yeah.

Man, what a great day.

♪ ♪ [boat motor faintly running] We always find a way to come back home to Moms.

Catch something, bring it back, and do a lot of cooking and eating with the family.

- I love to cook.

I even grow my own vegetables to cook.

So I enjoy them a lot, you know?

And I try to teach my girl what I cook every day.

And I like to have family meals.

I like to sit down as the family, and have dinner together every night if I can.

- Learning how to prepare this stuff, I mean it's a bonding experience with your family.

Definitely not as good a cook as my mom, but I try and you'll see that she's amazing at what she does.

It makes us all happy.

- The fish that I'm going to make today for her, she'll say, Mom, I want a spring roll.

Spring roll is really good for summertime.

So when I'm going to cook it I'm going to make glass noodles with all the vegetables.

I stir fry all that.

[sizzling] The secret to cooking fish is, you have to use a lot of spice.

People that can't stand the fish smell, they can enjoy it more.

[chuckles] [food sizzling] Done.

And then when she bring in the fish from the grill, she bring it in and I just stir fry all that and then I cover with the fish.

We are ready to go.

It's a good piece of fish.

- SID: A very good piece of fish right there.

It's just how I was raised, you know?

To learn how to put food on the table and share it with my family, and that way we can all gather.

I have a huge family and lots of friends.

When we gather around something we caught, that's a really cool feeling.

So good, huh?

You get to share something.

And you get to share these stories and the experiences, and you get back out there and you do it again.

It came out so good.

- You're welcome.

[gentle music] - SID: Food definitely always tastes better at Mom's house.

♪ ♪ [waves splashing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [gentle music] - The Davis Mountains Preserve is a crucial highland conservation project.

- They're what you call a mountain island or a sky island system.

It's an isolated mountain range that gets up to 8,400 feet.

And that elevation allows for a lot of different habitats.

'Cause the higher you get, the more rain you get and the cooler the climate gets.

- You go up through grasslands, then you go up through open woodlands, then you go up through closed woodlands, and finally into forest and then up to the tops of the mountains.

- JEFF: Because these mountain ranges are isolated, you sometimes get species that evolve that are unique to those habitats.

- A lot of these still have some of the same plants and animals that they would've had in the Ice Age.

[pensive music] So this sky island, you get hummingbirds, you get butterflies, you get birds, bees, bats and bears.

They have to have forests up in the mountains, pine and oak and juniper and pinon forest, where they find the food so that they can refuel between the next hop to the next sky island or mountaintop.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - The Davis Mountains Project is one that had been thought about, dreamed about, for a long time.

- JEFF: The Nature Conservancy first got involved in the '80s.

- ROBERT: We designed this project where we would keep a core preserve and surround ourselves with conservation easements.

[gentle music] And we were fortunate in that the highest elevation part of this sky island was in one big ranch called the U Up U Down Ranch owned by Don McIvor and his sisters.

[gentle music] - JOHN: It wasn't really a preserve or project until we were able to work with the McIvor family.

- It was gonna cost about 10 million dollars to buy the property, but how we were gonna pay for it was still up in the air.

- But it was when my father came to me probably in 1996 and presented my sister and me with a project.

- It's beautiful.

It's stunning, and it's its own ecosystem up there.

- JEFF: Anne and Jane, their father, Dr. Irving Schweppe.

- Just watched the girls mature as young philanthropists, and it was beautiful to watch that.

- JANE: There's a beautiful rock on Mount Livermore named Laura's Rock, after my mom.

- I cry every single time that I see...

I'm coming up the hill by the observatory and I see the Mount Baldy and Laura's Rock, which was just such a fitting tribute given her passion and adventurous spirit.

[wind blowing] - JEFF: They made a really generous donation that allowed us to help pay for that acquisition.

- JAMES: This preserve would not be here if it wasn't for Jane and Anne.

- ANNE: That was just really compelling to me, just to really jump off the cliff and do something huge.

- Most conservation work is done incrementally with little bits over long time periods.

And you have to commit to that long haul approach.

You're not gonna get there by just one giant thing that you do once.

You're gonna have to do many, many small things that add up to a big thing if you stay with it.

We go in there thinking we're gonna be here for the next 50 years piecing this together, because it takes that long.

- And so much of conservation is predicated on hope and therefore endeavor and effort, and-- - You don't need to know how it's gonna turn out.

Just go.

- I won't live to see it, but I want to believe that much of our conservation work does have the permanence and durability, at least for the foreseeable future.

[upbeat music] - I'd love to see a whole generation be inspired about, just go for it, man.

Just like be brave and go for it.

[upbeat music] - And it wouldn't be there without those folks that we're paying attention and saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait."

We've gotta preserve this.

This is really important.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ [birds chirping] - NARRATOR: When you visit our state parks in Texas, you soak in the beauty of the landscape... the wildlife, and the waterways.

But did you ever consider what it takes to keep these parks running and ready for visitors every day?

- JOHN: You see the lake or you see the trails, you know, you see our rangers working, that's pretty easy for people to recognize.

[door sliding] You got your disposable gloves, hand wash, hand sanitizer, deodorizers.

- NARRATOR: But what you don't see is all the equipment and supplies.

- Trash bags of four different sizes.

[clicking] Fuel for our vehicles and our equipment.

When you have a hundred thousand visitors a year, that's a lot of toilet paper you go through, right?

So lots of toilet paper.

What you don't see is that our trash service might cost $20,000 a year, and those purchases have to be made by somebody.

- NARRATOR: And that somebody is Judy Ahrens.

You'll find her diligently working at her desk each day negotiating with businesses, and following state mandates to make sure every park has what it needs to succeed.

- I work on contracts for anything from fiber installation services to chemical toilet cleaning services, to trash services, anything from a tractor or a vehicle, anything that needs to be procured, I help with that process.

- JOHN: Without Judy and people like her, we wouldn't function.

I don't think the state parks would be able to exist.

We would have not nearly the services that we provide right now.

- I do the yucky stuff, so that they can get out and do the necessary stuff and you know, do their job about protecting the resources of Texas.

We're gonna go this way, doc.

Come on baby.

- I would say it's somewhat thankless of a job in the sense that the only people that really know what she does... - Ah, this is the spot.

- JOHN: is us, you know, she supports us in doing the job to then provide the services to the visitors, right?

Do you remember what it looked like?

- Yeah.

- JOHN: Where we get a thank you from the visitors, we get a, you know, job well done, you know, she doesn't get that.

- Honestly, the, the best part of working for Texas Parks and Wildlife is because they provide such an opportunity for families to bond and for the employees to bond.

There are so many people that work really hard to help you... - There you go.

- JUDY: enjoy that privilege of being able to visit a state park.

- JOHN: We wouldn't be able to complete our mission within Texas Parks and Wildlife without their dedication and their hard work, so, thank you.

[gentle music] 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.

- Let's go buddy, come on.

I'm Christy Vales and this is my K-9 partner Ruger.

Come on, gotta go!

I've been a Game Warden for approximately 11 years and I'm stationed in the Travis County area.

He is a certified Peace Officer, you know, he's been commissioned.

His badge number is K-9-5.

All of our dogs are very high drive, they need a job.

The job that we give them is to use their nose.

You know it's just a win-win for everybody.

I really enjoy K-9 because you know, you create a bond with your dog, you do a lot of training, and then when you get that call, you know, to go help another officer, you know, it's extremely rewarding.

I served four years in the Air Force doing law enforcement and I was exposed to K-9 at that point.

So that's really where my interest in K-9 began.

Our program started in 2013 and we did all of our training in Utah post, which is equivalent to Texas DPS.

We have traveled there for narcotics, police search and rescue, instructor school.

That's where we have received most of our training.

Some of the calls we have been on include illegal game searches, search and rescue of a missing person including criminal tracks.

We have also have been on a lot of article recovery for evidence.

The dogs can quickly locate items and cut down on search time.

We assist a lot with water safety patrol.

When we're out there trying to find boaters that are boating while intoxicated, they could also be impaired on controlled substances, and our dogs can help find those.

- How y'all doing?

We're going to come aboard here for a second.

[bird chirping] - My name is Sam Shanafelt and I'm a Texas Game Warden.

[upbeat music] Blitz, who is my partner, he's with me every day.

He is the one partner that will always keep you going.

He's never tired, he's always ready to go.

He's something that you need, and we need him up here or across the state finding deer, or shell casings or rifles or pistols.

He's trained when he finds it, he lays down.

If it's something on a wildlife basis, a deer or a blood drop or a shell casing - all he knows is an award pops up.

And he's ready to find something again.

So growing up as a kid in East Texas, I can say that I grew up in probably the best region in the state, the piney woods.

When you're at the house, he gets just to be part of the family.

He gets to run around and play with the other dogs and plays with my son Cooper.

But then it comes to a point when you watch him out there, he's done.

He says, "It's time to go back to work, Dad."

He still knows that he has a job to do and his job is to go to work with me and find something.

There we go!

So we had a group of hunters come in.

What we want Blitz to do is to work the boat, go to the largest source of odor.

So one thing you're going to notice is the amount of odor that's going to be all over the boat.

Shotgun residue, ducks that have been in there in the past, and ducks that may be in there now, so we just used Blitz to see if they left anything behind, and sure enough they left a duck in there.

So they were able to keep the bird and it keeps them from getting a citation for a waste of game.

All-in-all no violations but it was a good find for the dog.

[dogs barking] - CHRISTY: Today we're doing an organized group training.

We rarely get to meet like this because we're all spread out across the state.

- Game Warden K-9 search and rescue.

I'm sending my dog, make some noise.

[energetic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - CHRISTY: Oh good boy!

That's a good boy.

- So I got a call this morning from Sonny, the Game Warden out of Bastrop County, and he entered a property to check a group of dove hunters.

I continue to be in route because Sonny felt maybe there is, there was a chance that they hid a shotgun or something.

I was going to assist with Ruger to do an article search.

[door closes] How's it going Sonny?

- We've got a 13-year-old that just came out right now.

He stated he wasn't hunting.

I'm going to finish writing the ticket and see what they say.

- CHRISTY: Now are they related in any way?

Brothers?

- SONNY: They're friends.

- CHRISTY: Okay.

How y'all doing?

State Game Warden Christy Vales.

How's it going?

- You mind stepping out with this officer real quick?

- CHRISTY: How are you, young man?

So are you doing any hunting today?

- Ah, no ma'am.

- Not at all?

- No.

- Do you have a hunting license?

- No I do not.

- Okay.

Most of you don't have a hunting license.

So I'm going to get my K-9 partner out, Ruger, just to clear the area and make sure that we don't find any shotguns or anything like that, okay?

- Alright.

- So no hunting at all?

- Well, I have been doing a little bit of hunting.

- Okay.

Is your shotgun here so we can check it to make sure you've got a plug in it?

- I don't know where it is.

- You don't know where it's at.

Okay.

Well I appreciate you being honest about hunting, okay?

What we're going to do is if you can just go back there and just stay with Officer Alaniz and then I'm going to get my K-9 out, okay?

- Okay.

- CHRISTY: Good boy.

You ready to go to work?

Ready to go to work?

That's a good boy.

Let's go.

Ready?

Ruger!

Any time we go on a real deployment it's a brand new area, new smells, he can feel our adrenaline and excitement.

It's a lot different than a training scenario.

So, he did very well.

[dog barks] That's a good boy.

That's a good boy.

Good job buddy.

Oh that's a good one there buddy!

As a K-9 handler, I will not touch the evidence.

Because I don't want my fingerprints on it.

I'll go back and contact Warden Alaniz, but because there's only two of us, officer safety, I'll just go switch, watch the guys, put Ruger up and he can come back and take photos and get the shotgun.

- SONNY: So, I'm going to go ahead and give you a verbal warning.

No ticket this time but if it happens again, you will get a ticket.

Do you understand?

- Yes sir.

- Alright.

Well go ahead and step back over there.

- CHRISTY: It's very unfortunate that the individual that is hiding evidence is the minor, the 13-year-old.

If the adults that he was with had hunter's education, this probably would have been avoided and the young child would have been educated on the ethics of hunting.

You know several of the adults didn't have a hunting license and it's just not a good example for you know the young 13-year-old.

[music] - CHRISTY: Ready?

You ready?

Go get it!

[splash] Good boy!

It's our scheduled day off.

I like to take Ruger to the park and just let him run and be a dog and enjoy himself, so he doesn't have any stress.

Good boy.

Today we're just out here throwing the ball and you know just letting him swim and have a good time.

[splash] [splash] Good boy.

All of us Game Warden K-9 units, we love what we do and we're very dedicated to serving the public.

These K-9's are amazing animals and we are extremely proud to have them as our K-9 partners.

That's a good boy!

Good job buddy!

[dog panting] [wind blowing] [wind blowing, bird chirping] [wind blowing] [wind blowing, bird chirping] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] 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.