- 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... - The main woodpeckers that we're trying to protect here are the red cockaded woodpeckers.

- Government Canyon was the start of recharge zone protection in San Antonio.

- You can get lost here.

Sometimes that what you need on a weekend is let me get lost for awhile.

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

♪ ♪ [gentle music] - DANIELLE: Government Canyon is a place that will always be a refuge.

[birds chirping] - JASON: It's a true treasure.

- CARTER: A stone's throw from downtown San Antonio.

- We are 12,360 acres of karst preserve over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone.

Forty miles of trail, 25 campsites.

But the main reason we're here is we're protecting this piece of land.

Over half of San Antonio gets their drinking water from areas like this.

Hey, y'all.

Welcome back to Government Canyon.

Good to see y'all!

- Nic.

Thank you.

- Oh, come on.

[both laughing] So today's a special day.

We've got some of the original players that made this whole Government Canyon experiment come to life.

- Connecting with old dear friends, we all bonded over the Government Canyon project.

It was something that started many of our careers.

- PHOTOGRAPHER: On three.

One, two, and three.

[camera shutter clicks] - The Government Canyon project actually had its beginning in the S&L bailout at the end of the 1980s.

- There was a tremendous surge of foreclosures around the state.

And Government Canyon was a part of that.

- Government Canyon was supposed to be 80,000 homes with two golf courses, all over recharge.

- ANDY: It was controversial.

And so there were citizens involved.

- Supporters of Government Canyon had a vision to protect this property, not only for pure preservation of the Edwards Aquifer, which is one of the most unique resources in the world, but what they also saw was, you know, San Antonio was rapidly growing and this was the direction it was growing in.

- NIC: People came together to form the Government Canyon Coalition.

- KYLE: It was over 40 organizations, nonprofits and just community groups.

- DANIELLE: Forty organizations.

That's like herding cats.

- San Antonio Water System, Edwards Aquifer Authority, the City of San Antonio.

- CARTER: U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service, nonprofits like the Trust for Public Land and the Nature Conservancy, and the list goes on and on and on.

- We put in sweat labor, basically, for probably a good four years.

- Laura Bush.

- DANIELLE: The right connections were made.

- ANDY: Our hosts tonight are Tim and Karen Hixon.

- DANIELLE: Powerful people like the Hixons became involved, and... - We only need 4 1/2 million more dollars.

- It was magic.

It was just magic.

[gentle music] - This park is the Hill Country as we want it to always be.

[birds chirping] - DIERDRE: The words that came out of Tim's mouth were, "Deirdre, they're not making land anymore.

You need to get the land now."

- CARTER: Government Canyon never would have happened without Tim and Karen Hixon.

- NIC: Tim and Karen were both commissioners, at different times, for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

I know Tim and Karen specifically had a sweet spot for this property.

- But for their commitment, their dedication, their philanthropy, their relationships, and kind of their stick-to-itiveness, it never would have come to fruition.

- NIC: This visitor center is the Tim and Karen Hixon Visitor Center.

- ANDY: They basically anchored the campaign in order to raise the funds to do it, otherwise it wouldn't be there.

- Presented at Government Canyon State Natural Area, October 14th, 2005.

[audience applauding] - ANDY: Tim and Karen's impact on this movement is felt well beyond the landscape itself, because there are so many of us who were personally mentored and affected by them.

- I credit them entirely with my love of the outdoors and with getting into work in conservation.

- What the Hixons did for me personally was open my eyes to a model of land conservation that really involved philanthropy at its core.

[gentle music] Putting their own passion and wealth into a project was mind-bending to me at the time.

Since then, I've done projects from San Antonio to San Francisco at a major level, and that is the model.

I refer to it now as The Playbook, and Tim and Karen showed me the way.

- I first met Tim and Karen, going back to my days at the Nature Conservancy.

We worked very closely together on the Edwards Aquifer Protection Program.

And what a wonderful advocate she was for all things outdoors and parks and natural resources when she was a Parks and Wildlife Commissioner.

- I'll write it down.

[Karen laughs] - Karen Hixon is today one of my closest friends.

She's often underestimated because of her quiet nature, but she's a force.

- One, two, three!

- Yay!

[audience applauding] - Whether it was the World Birding Center or the creation of Government Canyon or the Big Game Awards at the Texas Wildlife Association or the soon-to-be-opened Palo Pinto Mountains State Park, Karen and Tim just found ways to give back in ways that were always bigger than themselves.

[bright music] - Were it not for people like Tim and Karen, initiatives like this would not be occurring.

- We always felt that Government Canyon would be this beautiful Central Park to the area, and now it is truly just an island of beautifulness.

- Government Canyon was the start of recharge zone protection, for protecting our drinking water in San Antonio.

- Government Canyon was kind of one of the inaugural public-private partnerships that brought together all of these different funding streams and partners to realize a vision that was bigger than any one of them could have accomplished.

[bright music] Really, a template for these other extraordinary places around the state that have since been conserved.

Places like the Powderhorn Ranch or the Fawcett Wildlife Management Area, Palo Pinto Mountains State Park.

- ANDY: Palo Pinto, Honey Creek, none of those would have been done without a combination of philanthropic support and public funds.

[bright music] The hardest thing that we have to do is to spend today's dollars and make difficult political decisions on behalf of people who are not born.

And the two of them always understood that the impact of their generosity and their political support is for people who are not here yet, future generations.

- Have we got everybody?

- I think we got 'em all.

- DIERDRE: If it weren't for that vision that the Hixons had, we would not be here today enjoying this great State Natural Area.

- JASON: It would be a sea of housing, and that's what they predicted at the time.

- It shows that you have to find a way today to protect properties, to find places for rejuvenation and recharge, for our resources and for our spirits.

And that was exactly what the Hixons did, is they envisioned what was going to happen, and they got in front of it.

- DIERDRE: The number of people that have been coming into the State Natural Area today, that was something we always dreamed of.

- CARTER: We now have protected open space that generations of Texans from all over will forever get to see and use and enjoy.

- It started at 4,700 and it's now over 12,000 acres.

So the seed planted with this property has left a legacy.

- Thank goodness for the generosity of folks like Karen and Tim, who knew that we had to do this.

[bird chattering] [light jazzy music] - We're paddling in the slough at Martin Dies, Jr.

State Park.

[water rustling] A weekend here is very serene and I enjoy it so much.

You can get lost here and sometimes that's what you need on a weekend is let me get lost for a while.

[light jazzy music] There's a lot of good places to paddle.

You can paddle out to the river, you can paddle in the lake, you can paddle back in these sloughs and backwater areas.

[light jazzy music] We have a number of trails here at Martin Dies.

This particular one we're on goes around the Walnut Ridge unit, and then the north end of the lake is a labyrinth of passageways and channels.

Very, very interesting to go back in there.

[wind blowing] I just love the swamps.

I like the vegetation, the views, the animals that live here, the birds.

It's a calming effect to me.

- You can sit still for just a moment or adventure into a new area and feel the rhythm of the wind and the trees.

[bird chirping] It is so easy to fall into the natural cadence of nature.

[crickets chirping] - Never had a problem with an alligator.

I've seen some quite large.

They always try to get away from me.

[gentle music] [frogs croaking] I always enjoy going through this bridge because of the echo you can hear.

[water rustling] Okay, we have to yodel when we go through the bridge now.

[Mark laughing] [water rustling] [Gerald yodeling] [Mark yodeling] [Gerald laughing] - MARK: Oh, I think I'm gonna cry that was so pretty.

- GERALD: Are you kidding me?

[laughs] - This is one of my favorite state parks because it is so diverse.

To me, it's a more intimate way to get to nature, close to you.

You know, a lot of folks love the open.

I like the more confined part of this swamp.

The waters are calm, it's quiet.

Just a great place to get away from the hustle and bustle of life, I tell you.

It sure is.

[vocalist yodeling] [vocalist yodeling] [gentle music] ♪ ♪ - One of my favorite parts about this place is how quiet it is.

It sure is relaxing in the morning.

[gentle music] Mack loves it out here.

This is his favorite place.

- Scrappin Valley is very special.

This is very relaxing to me coming out here and just being in nature.

[gentle music] - Oh my gosh, there went a turkey.

- Scrappin Valley is basically three landowners.

There's Yellow W, which is my family.

There is Crest Natural Resources, which is the bulk of it.

And then the eastern side is my son's company, Scrappin Valley Lodge.

- The Dunkins are very good neighbors.

Our management activities align.

We do a lot of the same things.

We have a lot of the same goals.

Part of our core values is just doing the right thing.

I hear the Turkey gobble.

The candles are starting to grow on them.

We have a little over 600 trees per acre here.

The longleaf was native here, and we have returned about 1,200 acres of longleaf to this site.

- RUFUS: The first thing that we did was thin it to get it to where the grass could grow really well underneath the trees.

- The grass looks good.

- It was a really good burn.

- SCOTTY: It's quite the thrill.

You take the ultimate thing that man can't control and you control it, it's the ultimate thrill.

A lot of animals like deer and turkey, they need the open spaces to be able to see predators, to have the habitat for nesting, and having an open forest floor is what provides that for them.

By reintroducing this fire, we take out the non-native plants and reestablish the native plants that have evolved with this fire, they need the fire to survive.

- It really opens up the woods for wildlife to preserve it for the next generation.

[gentle music] The main woodpeckers that we're trying to protect here are the red-cockaded woodpeckers.

This white band signifies that this is a tree that has a red-cockaded woodpecker cavity in it.

We have increased the woodpecker population on our side about 50% in these eight or so years, to the point where we're even exporting red-cockaded woodpeckers to other forests that need them.

- SCOTTY: And when I drive through here and I see the animals that have flourished because of our management activities, it makes me very proud, and it's a great privilege.

[gentle music] [frogs croaking and birds chirping] - My name's Daniel Rios, I am the resource specialist at Ray Roberts Lake State Park.

When monitoring wetlands, it's not only important to know what's in the wetland but also what's around it to really tell you the health of that wetland.

So we could put a nice tree camera up high on this one to get some footage of any animals coming up this game trail here.

We'll put it up high, so hopefully the raccoons don't steal my cameras this time.

[dramatic music] [static] We're actually gonna go out and start cutting out some mesquites out of our prairies.

[chainsaw revving] As the resource specialist, my team and I, we do a lot of natural restoration type projects.

So we do prairie restoration and forest management as well as wetland monitoring.

We'll go through an area and we try to restore prairies and forest back to what they originally looked like before invasive species were introduced to this area.

And if we don't take 'em out, they'll continue to spread and they'll take over the area completely.

Things like deer will kind of avoid this area because they won't be able to get through here.

[playful music] The resource team and I do a lot of conservation, preservation, and restoration.

One of the ways we can kind of determine if an area is healthy or if it needs some type of restoration, is actually the types of animals that are in it.

In our wetlands we have quite a few beavers, and beavers are a keystone species.

If we have lots of beavers, then we know that that wetland ecosystem is very healthy.

Because they're the ones that build and maintain that ecosystem.

And so without them, those dams will break and the water will be released.

All the other animals that are living in that ecosystem will die off.

[playful music] We use a lot of trail cameras here and it kind of just helps us monitor the types of species we have because that helps us determine if what we're doing is working.

If we restore an area where we're trying to get more turkey and quail into that area, we'll put some game cameras out and if we get a lot of turkey and quail that area, we know that we were successful in those efforts.

[playful music] When we're out placing cameras, there's certain things we look for.

One of them is tracks.

So here's some deer tracks and it seems like it's leading through a very distinctive game trail going across here.

We have all our special trails here for the hiking trails and biking trails but kind of animals make their own little trails.

A lot of times we'll just kind of follow those to see where they go.

Another thing we look for if it's rutting season is marks on the tree where the deer have actually kind of tried rubbing the felt off of their antlers.

Right here, this tree right here.

Those are actually the rut marks I was talking about.

When we're looking for beavers, one thing we'll look for is dams that they've built, which is a collection of sticks, mud, and rocks.

That they've kind of built up in an area to flood the grounds behind it.

[dramatic music] So here's a good sign that there are active beavers around here doing what beaver do, which is eating trees with those giant yellow teeth that you see.

[dramatic music] We use three different types of containers or stands for it.

So in a grassland area, if we're trying to monitor that, we'll use actual tall stands so we can see over the grasses so we can see like the deer moving through.

If we're in a forested area, we have attachments for trees and then for kind of our wetlands and other areas where we want to get some smaller animals.

So like your, your beavers and otters, we actually have ammo boxes that we've kind of changed into containers for these game cameras.

[dramatic music] This ammo box, we actually kind of built ourselves.

It was just a cheap $5 ammo box that we drilled some holes in.

And that is so we could actually put it down lower and attach it to a tree because we have had several cameras get stolen by animals around here.

Especially raccoons.

[static] [dramatic music] We're not only just looking to see what species are there, we're also looking to see if they're healthy.

Chronic wasting disease within deer is a kind of a big problem.

And so if we can record our deer, because we can't just walk up to our deer and check 'em like a vet does.

We'll record them and then we'll see if they have any signs of chronic wasting disease.

So the chronic wasting disease doesn't spread to other deer.

One of the most exciting species that we've actually got are beavers and our otters.

We've never actually seen beavers here, we've seen signs of them, but we've never actually seen them until we started doing kind of some studies down in our wetlands.

[playful music] With that study, we actually started capturing video of otters because otters really weren't known to be within this area.

The very first clip we ever got was just this otter that kind of walked up and just looked at the camera and then just turned around and walked away.

We enjoy putting out the cameras because we actually get to see all these animals and what they're doing in their natural environment.

[dramatic music] - I'm Morgan O'Hanlon, a Senior Staff Writer at "Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine".

- And I'm David Yoskowitz, Executive Director Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

♪ Better outside ♪ - MORGAN: Together, we're bringing you a new show about how life's better outside and the people who work every day to make outside better.

♪ Better outside ♪ In each episode, we'll take you into the great outdoors.

- This will be good.

- MORGAN: Whether we're out counting sheep.

- Gotcha.

- Good shot.

- MORGAN: On the hunt for invasive species or just taking a trip down the river, you'll learn something new about conservation in the Lone Star State.

♪ Better outside ♪ So are you ready to go outside?

♪ Better outside ♪ [upbeat rock music] - NARRATOR: Next time on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - That's the hardest part of the tower construction is just to be on top of the ladder with a big old section up there.

- I think that the app is a great way to engage with nature.

It's also a way to engage with other people.

Are you Jada?

Hi Jada, Sam!

- We look at it and ultimately answer the question, does this make a good state park?

What can people do there?

There's a lot of things that need to come together.

- NARRATOR: That's next time on Texas Parks & Wildlife.

[wind blowing] [wind blowing] [insects chirping] [insects chirping] [wind blowing] [birds calling] [birds calling] [birds calling] [birds calling] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [insects chirping] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] - 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.