- There is a place in far West Texas where night skies are dark as coal, and rivers carve temple like canyons in ancient limestone.

There at the end of the road, hundreds of bird species take refuge in a solitary mountain range, surrounded by weather beaten desert.

Tenacious cactus bloom in sublime Southwestern sun and diversity of species is the best in the country.

The magical place is Big Bend.

That's how the National Park Service describes our wild treasure, and it could be a growing treasure.

A bill before Congress proposes to substantially increase the size of Big Bend.

We recently traveled to this splendid isolation to meet with a renowned expert on all things Big Bend.

I'm Becky Ferguson, and this is "One Question."

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) Big Bend might be on the verge of getting bigger.

The more than 800,000 acre park could grow considerably if a bill before Congress becomes law.

Also on the drawing board an effort to convince Congress to declare Big Bend a protected wilderness.

Learning more about those significant proposals took us to Big Bend, but we brought home a treasure trove report on this splendid gem from one of the park's human treasures, Raymond Skiles.

He's a rock star to Big Bend devotees, a retired biologist who spent most of his 30 plus year career in Big Bend.

In an extended conversation over and around the park Skiles told us not just about the proposed legislation to expand the park and the push to declare it wilderness, but why these propositions are important to West Texas.

We learned why more than 600,000 folks from around the world travel to Big Bend each year.

He told us about the extraordinary species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and vertebrates and insects living at the park.

A heroic and successful effort in Big Bend to rescue the Peregrine Falcon from near extinction, the return of black bears to Texas, that Big Bend has more species of birds than any other national park in the US.

He taught us about the extraordinary plant species that thrive in this desert, and he took us to some spectacular sites captured by our team to share, as you listen to our interview with this marvelously knowledgeable Raymond Skiles.

Raymond, thank you so much for spending some time with us today.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your association with the park.

- Well, I actually grew up in West Texas, much of it at the Permian Basin, but as soon as I left college with a wildlife biology degree, I came out to Big Bend and worked in other jobs, but was able to spend some time with the National Park Service, moving around the country for about seven years, but ended up back in my favorite place, favorite park in the nation, Big Bend National Park, as their wildlife biologist, and something called wilderness coordinator.

That lasted about 30 years here in Big Bend, living and working here in the park.

- We'll talk a little bit about the wilderness in a little bit, and a little bit about wildlife also, but right now I wanna talk to you about the proposed expansion of the park.

- Well, there's a proposal, and actually it's more than a proposal now.

There's action being taken to acquire or expand the boundary of the park by 6,000 acres.

A ranching family, heritage family here that owns more than half of that offered it to be part of the park.

And so it's along Terlingua Creek.

That's the critical issue here.

The Chihuahuan Desert out here doesn't have many creeks with at least partially flowing water and cottonwood trees and willows and great habitat for birds.

And so that makes it more important maybe than otherwise.

And so the Big Bend Conservancy, a non-profit support group for the park, is just about to close on acquiring that property from this ranch family who so generously is interested in seeing it be part of the park.

And so that's a great step.

It does take another one, and that is boundary change for a national park requires an act of Congress, federal law.

And so we're the conservancy is working toward getting a bill through Congress to expand the park, create the boundary expansion to include that area.

So two parts, one, the the actual purchase and the other one the boundary expansion.

And at that point it would be in the national park, as the goal has been established.

- What's the status of the legislation?

- Well, actually both parties have cooperated.

So bipartisan legislation has been introduced to both the House and the Senate.

Now, you know, it may happen this year.

It may be next year.

A bill like this is kind of considered a small issue and it will likely be bundled into an omnibus package of multiple projects, probably around the national park system of the country, and added to a bill that does this as well as lots of other things.

- Do we have a sense of the timing?

- Well, we're optimistic that it could happen this year.

And given the bipartisan nature of the introductions on both sides, we're hopeful.

But you know that that's the political sphere.

I'm not the one to predict very well, but we're thinking this year or next, and either would be great.

- And talk a little bit more about why the expansion of the park is important.

- Well, there's the justification other than the fact that it's a creek area, this western side of the park outside the park is rapidly developing.

The Terlingua Study Butte area is just experiencing exponential growth on a yearly basis.

And frankly, you know, the park is being kind of hemmed in, and nothing against that, but it's an important buffer for the western scene of the National Park.

Much of this western portion of the park has a view that that looks out over this Terlingua creek zone.

And this is probably the last opportunity to make it part of the park, keep it open space that people love to see when they come to Big Bend.

- You've talked in the past about the importance of wilderness designation.

Tell me a little bit more about that.

- Right.

Well, as a retiree no longer working for the Park Service, I'm part of a citizens group that is pushing for, trying to gain support for another layer of protection for the national park.

And it's called the Wilderness Act, which was passed back in 1964 by Congress during the LBJ administration.

And most national parks already have this.

There's 64 national parks in the country.

50 of them are largely designated as wilderness.

And what I'm talking about is not changing any access, you know, all the roads and developments, like visitor centers and gas stations, those are important.

And it doesn't affect that.

It's the areas that are beyond the roads out past the constructed elements in the park that already are the wild open space.

And this simply ensures that they will stay that way, keeping the existing mix of development and undeveloped areas.

We just see the world more and more rapidly developing our open space, and wilderness designation would say, okay, these patches of wild area between and away from the roads, not including roads or developments that are here now, they'll stay that way, they'll be free of future heavy duty construction of roads and developments.

And that's what people come here for.

You need the existing roads to get to the wild open space.

And the reality is, this was actually proposed to Congress back in 1978 as required by that Wilderness Act.

And there were lots of parks being designated at that time, and again, the political horse trading meant that Big Ben got sidelined, it didn't actually get to a vote in Congress, and we're just saying, "Hey, let's finish up this unfinished business to ensure that what we love about Big Ben National Park is here for our kids and grandkids and beyond."

- What has to happen for that to happen?

- Well, again, it's a bill through Congress signed by the president, and the Congressman Gonzalez that is our local congressman is certainly interested in it.

And one of his requests was go out in the community and let's find out what kind of support there is, try to make people aware of this and what it means.

And so this citizens group that I'm part of has been doing that meeting with, local government, civic organizations, chambers of commerce, and individual business owners, particularly the outfitters, that make their living bringing people into the park and helping them enjoy it.

And so we've had just an amazing outpouring of support.

There's a website Keep BigBendWild.org, if anyone caress to delve deeper.

And, of course, you know, everyone's not gonna agree on everything.

There's always gonna be a need to sort of keep talking and hopefully get over any humps that there might be seen.

But it's very encouraging how much local support in this, what we call the tri-county area of Brewster, Jeff Davis, and Presidio Counties that we found among the citizenry here.

- But the legislation has yet to be introduced.

- That's correct.

You know, we're spending lots of time just talking to folks.

We just completed a couple of public meetings in Terlingua and Alpine, and again, getting people informed about the possibility here, what it means, and also seeking their comments, the folks who might have ways of kind of helping us improve the proposal.

And yes, the representatives and senators have been consulted and we're all working toward that ultimate goal.

And again, we're hopeful that there'll be folks in those legislative bodies interested in filing this legislation and helping get it through the federal designation.

- We have somebody joining us in our interview.

Can you tell us who is talking to us?

- Right, we have a very vocal cactus wren that's calling and it's a signature bird of the Chihuahuan Desert and Big Bend National Park, largely because of that raucous call that it has.

- Has a lot to say.

- Right.

- Tell us a little bit about the birds that people could expect to see in this park.

- Well, it's a spectacular place for birds.

The diversity of habitat from the Rio Grande River and all the trees there through the Chihuahuan Desert where we're standing now up into the wooded mountains of the Chisos Mountains provides habitat for lots of different birds.

In fact, Big Bend National Park has more documented bird species than any other national park in the entire country.

So, certainly these cactus wrens are a signature bird.

Lots of bird watchers come to see the colima warbler, which lives up in the mountains.

This is just the most northerly extent of where this Mexican bird species can be found.

And they're also quite attractive colored birds, and so that's a sought after bird.

But you know, there's so many others.

We could talk about from vermilion flycatcher to golden eagles.

The list goes on and on.

- Let's talk about mammals that we might see in the park.

- Well, again, mammals are a big part of the park's fauna, well, fauna is mammals, and other animals including reptiles, amphibians.

But they're a little harder to see they're here.

But because it's a desert, they tend to be more nocturnal, not out at the same time as we are most of the time.

But certainly this full suite of these medium and large mammals like bobcats, coyotes, foxes, javelina is one that sometimes people haven't seen if they're from other parts of the country.

And, of course, the black bear, you know, maybe the most talked about species, because they're so rare in the state of Texas, even though they were a common species throughout Texas, they're hard to find these days.

And Big Bend National Park is probably a Texan's best opportunity to be in bear habitat and possibly see a black bear.

- You've told me that there's a fairly small population of the black bear because he needs a lot of space, or she needs a lot of space.

Can you tell us how many you think there are here?

- Well, remarkably, and it doesn't sound like many, but probably in the range of 30 to 40 black bears inhabit the park.

And they do, not entirely all year, but they do require mountains and trees for part of their time, particularly when they're bringing off young baby bears and the cubs.

Retreating up a tree is how they feel safe.

So the Chisos Mountains has the core of that black bear population.

But they can certainly migrate and spend time out through the deserts.

Early in the year, the Desert of (indistinct) and the fruits that are coming on to cactus and other things in the lower country can be really good feeding habitat and opportunity for the black bears.

- Can you tell us a little bit about the history of the park, how it came to be?

- Yeah.

The park remarkably was a Texas idea.

You know, sometimes people think about the national park and say, "Well, there's something the feds did, right?"

Well, the inception, the concept came from local Texans.

In fact, all the way back to the early part of the 20th century, folks that were coming down here had this concept that this is just remarkable, spectacular scenery and, of course, diverse habitat and wildlife, and so it took community leaders from the local area, Alpine and other towns in the zone, to begin the push for it.

And finally in 1936, a bill made it through the US Congress to authorize the national park.

And then in 1944, it was established.

The state of Texas actually acquired the property.

So all the way from a well-known story of that, the Fort Worth Star Telegram fostered to get school children to donate pennies and nickels and dimes all the way up to acts of the Texas legislature to fund acquisition of the land that is now the National Park.

So since 1944, it's been the public space to come and enjoy and learn and appreciate wild country.

- And tell us about the kinds of people that visit here and the numbers of people that visit here.

- Well, people from all walks of life and all places around the country and beyond come to Big Bend National Park.

It's kind of remarkable to be near the Visitor Center, for instance, on a busy time and hear the variety of languages of people that come from almost around the globe.

But certainly nationally it's becoming much more popular.

And as the state of Texas grows by leaps and bounds, all the urban areas, the visitation of the National Park has just been going through the roof.

And of course, some people who remember when it was a quiet place without many people, may lament the old days, but for the last several years, record numbers of visitors have come to Big Bend, and it's now that number is around 600,000 visitors per year.

But it's a huge benefit to the local economy, and certainly sharing this treasure of the state of Texas on a scale way beyond even this state is what the park is for.

- When we drove up this morning and we were looking at these beautiful mountains, there was sort of a haze covering them.

Can you talk to me about that haze?

- Well, yes, you know, sometimes people come down and the scenery is a bit obscured in the distance because the air is not crystal clear.

And other times it can be just astonishing, you know, you can see literally hundreds of miles on clear days.

But over the last few decades, air pollution, obviously, from some distance away has been scientifically proven to be the cause of most of the haze in Big Bend when you see that.

Studies have shown that it's kind of on a track of common weather patterns that come from literally the Eastern US down along the Texas Gulf Coast.

And then these weather patterns turn and go West and Northwest across Northern Mexico ending up here in Big Bend National Park.

So all along that route there are modern sources of air pollution, particulate matter, that feed into the Big Bend area.

Fortunately, it appears to be getting better as both Mexico and the US are improving and reducing emissions that cause haze in places like Big Bend.

- I know a great passion of yours is conservancy and you have mentioned the peregrine falcon.

Can you tell us that story?

- Well, it's a success story in some ways.

It was an approaching tragedy that the peregrine falcons were declining back through the '50s and '60s, and actually were put on the Endangered Species List in 1970.

And if you're not familiar with peregrine falcons, they're one of the most capable flyers of all the birds capable of fast flight.

They nest in the high cliffs, which Big Bend has, in the mountains and along the rivers.

They prey upon other birds.

So they're kind of the king of the bird pyramid.

And, anyway, they're spectacular animals, but they were going away.

They were at the threat of extinction, and it was determined it was because of pesticides in the environment.

Those of us old enough, remember the issues over DDT, an insecticide that was ubiquitous really globally almost.

But when that was determined and restrictions on that pesticide began, it was still in doubt as to whether or not they would make it.

But every year there's probably nine to 12 pairs of peregrines, that's not very many, that live in Big Bend National Park and the Rio Grande wild and scenic river.

And so the park actually... And I was involved in this a lot, began studying the peregrines back during that time, determined that these birds were about as healthy as they they could be in the country, mainly because of the isolation.

And this became even a source for eggs that would be taken to incubation facilities, young produced and then taken to be reintroduced in other parts of the country where they had already been wiped out.

But fortunately with these efforts on the ground as well as controlling the DDT problem, the birds rebounded and were taken off the endangered species list, I believe it was in 1998, about that time.

And they still are doing well here in Big Bend National Park.

- Well, harvesting those eggs couldn't have been particularly easy because they're on the cliffs, as I understand.

Tell me how you did that.

- Well, that's correct.

Their nests are not just on cliffs, but hundreds of feet high on really big tall cliffs.

And there's a organization that was established back then called the Peregrine Fund in Idaho that made their specialty going out, taking ropes, climbing off these extremely high cliffs to the nesting ledges.

They don't nest on a bunch of sticks like other birds do.

They nest on rocky ledges maybe with just some gravel on them.

And so these intrepid climbers that you were dedicated to preserving the species, made it down there, gathered a few eggs in places where the birds were doing well, took 'em back and helped repopulate the country with peregrine falcons.

- That's a wonderful success story.

Do you have concerns about the park?

- Well, certainly.

I'm very positive about the park, but I'm also aware of the threats.

Certainly air pollution is one of those.

We see that going in a positive way.

There's several other issues that have been identified, for instance, non-native invasive species, both of plants and animals that are coming in and literally changing what's been here for thousands of years, the Chihuahuan Desert into something different.

I'll name a few of these species that some people may be familiar with, others not.

For instance, salt cedar is one that has taken over much of the stream along the Rio Grande and Desert Springs.

Fortunately there's been been a good effort to set those back with, again, an introduced beetle that feeds only on salt cedar.

Buffalo grass is turning much of the open desert into a grassland, and it displaces these, for instance, beautiful ocotillo like where we're standing now.

And one of the largest impacts comes from domestic cattle, mostly that come across the Rio Grande.

You know, it's shallow enough, and sometimes you can wade it without getting your knees wet.

And the park for its entire existence has struggled with illegal grazing in the park, mostly from the area along the Rio Grande.

So that's just a highlight of them.

Certainly the number of people that come here can begin having an impact.

The national parks are not restricted, there's not a cap on how many people can come, but the local communities strive to serve them.

The national park has developments that, again, do that job.

But sometimes the funding for the national park to handle all those visitors is kind of hard to come by.

So we hope that National Park Service Funding can keep pace with this rapidly increasing amount of visitation.

- What would you tell somebody who's considering a visit to the park?

What should they look for?

What should they do to prepare?

- Well, it's a wonderful goal, and if you haven't been here, I would encourage you to do that.

But certainly, it's outside the sort of norm of most people's experience.

So understanding that it is a desert, that much of the year, it can be really hot and even dry.

The park unfortunately has to respond to a number of people every year that have heat-related problems while they're here.

And so, bring plenty of water, a hat, stay shaded, try to avoid the heat of the afternoon.

That's just a safety recommendation.

But beyond that, the distances out here are sometime a little surprising from just making sure you tank of gas is full to realizing that you may not be able to pop into a Walmart or a large store.

There are small convenience stores in the area.

And then with the increasing visitation, planning for where you're gonna stay.

I remember when you could pretty much just come in and on the same day find yourself a campsite or a motel room in or out of the park, but you have to pretty much make reservations now in advance.

During the busy time, that can be several months in advance.

During the less busy times, not so long, but just planning ahead, making sure that when you're out here in this remote place, you're ready to go and enjoy it without having hiccups and difficulties.

- Well, it's beautiful and you have so much expertise and we thank you so much for sharing it with us.

- It's my pleasure.

It's my favorite topic.

- I know, I can tell.

That's lovely.

Skiles spoke to us of the abundance of hiking trails and camping opportunities at the park, but cautioned would be hikers and campers to properly prepare for the challenging terrain and weather before setting out on adventures.

Our art this evening comes from Jane Piper, 1916 to 1991, an exhibit entitled "Abstraction in White" at Baker Shore Fine Art.

Recognized by critics as one of Philadelphia's foremost painters and teachers, Jane Piper enjoyed a career that spent 50 years and included 35 solo shows.

Known for her abstract still lives, she has been described as an instinctive individualist, whose independent spirit characterized her art, education, and approach to teaching.

Building on the French modernist tradition of Matisse and Cezanne, Piper gave color precedence over representation.

She was interested in spatial organization and in creating space through color.

By 1952, her work was growing increasingly abstract, and she began using white as the dominant color of her palette.

Her works are in numerous collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the National Academy of Design.

Her work is currently on display at Baker Shore Fine Art in Midland.

Finally, thank you for joining us for this edition of "One Question."

We will be back from time to time with special interest interviews.

I'm Becky Ferguson.

Goodnight.

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