- 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 is provided by Toyota.

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

Toyota--Let's Go Places.

Coming up on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - If it's in the water... - Big crab.

- ...it usually has something in it.

- The Bird City designation, it makes conservation a priority.

- Let's do 16 pounds for him.

I thought we were going to have a hard time finding cats to catch in these really urban spots, but there is no shortage of bobcats.

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

[upbeat music] - HOLLY GRAND: The people who are out here a lot understand the importance of keeping our bays clean.

They're going out on their own vessels, using their own time to help us remove these traps.

- We have a pretty strong passion for taking part in this effort.

- If it's in the water, it usually has something in it.

Blue crabs, and stone crabs, and fish are in the trap.

[upbeat music] - This week, Parks and Wildlife has closed the bays to all crabbing, and any trap left in the water is assumed derelict.

And so our job is to pick them up.

Let's go check it out.

[boat motor revving] I'm Allan Berger.

You get back to the maps?

I'm the chairman of the San Antonio Bay partnership, whose mission is to care for the San Antonio Bay system.

- TYLER: Yeah, that's a buoy.

- ALLAN: Get your hook.

- I'm Tyler Sanderson, the Executive Director of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Trust.

We are a land trust conserving working lands, open space, and habitat in the Guadalupe River watershed.

The Guadalupe River watershed runs from Kerrville to the coast, and it comes out right here in the San Antonio Bay.

And that's why we come down here.

It's a really cool project.

I mean, it's the only way to really describe it.

Two stone crabs, three stone crabs.

When you actually get out there and you see how many traps are left, How many critters are stuck, it has an impact on you.

- ALLAN: A trap that's in the water, even though it's not baited, when something gets in it and dies, it self-baits.

So it continues to fish, even though it's not being commercially run.

So many of the traps we pull out of the water have live crabs in them and dead crabs in them and haven't been run by commercial fishermen for months.

- TYLER: We've got a blue crab.

Big crab.

- ALLAN: It kills crabs and it kills fish the same way.

- TYLER: One, two, three, three fish.

- ALLAN: So that's-that's the primary importance of getting them out of the water, so that they're not ghost fishing.

- TYLER: Come on out of there buddy.

There you go.

- ALLAN: In addition to that, they also are navigation hazards.

- TYLER: This one's damaged.

- ALLAN: Boats run into them.

That one's damaged too?

- TYLER: Yeah, just a dead fish.

- ALLAN: Shrimpers catch them in their nets.

As important to me is that they're ugly litter, all along the beach front.

- TYLER: Nice and light.

I see one, two, three... - HOLLY: This is definitely about protecting our resources for everyone, but it is really important for our anglers because it is potentially impacting their catch.

- Whooping cranes!

- HOLLY: The whooping cranes that come down here every year, every winter, a big part of their diet are these blue crabs.

This is everyone's bay.

This is 20.

My name is Holly Grand and I am the statewide coordinator for the Abandoned Crab Trap Removal Program.

We can't do this alone.

- NARRATOR: Abandoned crab traps have been an increasing problem in the bays, trapping unused crabs and other marine life.

- HOLLY: The first year of the Crap Trap Clean Up back in 2002, it was mostly our game wardens who participated.

- Give an award for the heaviest and ugliest trap out here.

- It was very clear after that that there was no way that we could do it on our own.

So we enlisted the help of a lot of different organizations, like the San Antonio Bay Partnership, Galveston Bay Foundation, the Christmas Bay Foundation.

All have large volunteer events.

[dramatic music] - You see a float?

- ALLAN: I see one out there, yeah.

I was a fishing bum for about three years when I retired, and then I decided it was time to kind of start giving back a little bit of my love for the bay.

- Another one right out there.

- Enough.

[laughs] We don't need anymore!

[laughs] - TYLER: I love the coast, and that mission to conserve the bay.

Six fish.

Three of them dead.

There's quite a few critters in these.

Every single one, it seems like, has had something in them.

You see a lot of dead fish in here, but the ones that are alive, it does feel good that you're sending them home.

You're a slippery bugger!

My back is going to be a little sore, my shoulders are going to be a little sore.

I don't work out normally, so getting my workout in this week.

This one needs a haircut like me.

Wilson!

[laughs] - The best part about this is that at the end of the day, you can actually look and see what you've been able to accomplish.

- TYLER: Entire body workout doing this.

I don't know how many we've done, about 40.

I think the most important thing is awareness, having better outreach and education for these crabbers to understand the impact they're having by leaving them out there.

- For the past few years, we've been finding close to 3,000 traps every year.

Since the beginning of the program, we've been able to save over half a million blue crabs.

- Yeah, it's really uplifting.

- ALLAN: We'll be back.

If we do a good job of managing our business, we shouldn't have to pick up so many traps.

So my goal is to see the number of traps we pick up go down every year.

[uplifting music] - One of the great things about Bastrop is our location.

If you draw a triangle and you go between Houston, San Antonio, and Austin, kind of in the middle of that triangle in the sweet spot, you'll find the city of Bastrop.

But what you'll find is historic, wonderful, friendly environment, a community that works together and a community that enjoys birds.

- Bastrop is blessed with the Colorado River running through it, so a lot of riparian birds.

You're always going to see great blue herons, often egrets.

There's a kingfisher that always hangs out here, a belted kingfisher, bald eagles, bluebirds are almost always here.

In migration, great numbers of warblers.

Within Bastrop County, we have probably five different eco regions represented.

There's black land prairie.

There's the lost pines or the piney woods, there's the riparian, and post oak savanna.

So, each of those has different niche birds.

And just within that, a small area, which is fun.

- Back in March of 2018, we found out that there was going to be Bird City designations and we were so excited to find out that Bastrop was one of only four cities in the state that was designated a Bird City in the very first year.

- The mural behind me, it was in honor of Bastrop getting the Bird City designation.

So that was a collaboration of the Bird City Coalition and local artists to honor our work that we've done in getting it.

[inspirational music] - LOUISE: Birds are kind of bellwether species in a lot of ways, so if we don't focus on conserving birds, we're also going to lose a lot of other things.

What happens to the birds other species follow, you know, so we can't ignore it.

For our own pleasure of having the birds, but also because of their importance in the whole scheme of things.

[upbeat music] - DAVID: Bastrop has something to be proud of and they have something to work for in the future as far as building and restoring bird habitat and seeing it grow even more.

- LOUISE: The Bird City designation, it makes conservation a priority.

Implementing things like dark skies, and, you know, non-reflective windows, and cats indoors, and it's just going to be carried as part of the mission of Bastrop as a city.

- CONNIE: The environment is a really important part of what pulls the community together.

You can go stand-up paddle boarding, you can kayak, you can canoe, you can go for a walk along the river.

And eco-tourism is an opportunity that helps both the economy, and it helps our environment.

[birds chirping] - LOUISE: We did an introduction to birding class.

We had 40 people come every week for four weeks.

There's an interest that's always been there that's being brought more to the forefront.

[bird chirping] - It is a male.

- DAVID: One of our hotspots for birding is here at Fisherman's Park in the June Hill Paved River Walk.

It borders to Colorado River, and it just offers a very wide variety of birds.

And you get a bit of everything when you're down here.

- I think it's an exciting time for Bastrop and for Texas to be highlighting birds.

And cities should go for it because it will add a lot to your community, not just in the in terms of tourism, but just in awareness.

And it will help protect the birds and the environment and just bring people a lot of pleasure.

- NARRATOR: Julie Golla is a graduate student.

When she is home, she looks after a housecat.

[cat purring] [phone alert] - NARRATOR: But when she leaves home, it is often because another kind of cat is calling.

- JULIE GOLLA: The allure of cats and their strength and their stealth...

They're pretty fascinating.

[camera clicks] - NARRATOR: Julie is studying bobcats, and where she is finding them might surprise you.

[car honks] With Texas Parks and Wildlife, Julie is researching these wild cats in between urban Dallas and Fort Worth.

- We're hoping to answer some very basic questions about urban bobcats, something that we know very little about.

We do know a decent amount about them in rural areas, there have been a number of bobcat studies here in Texas, but nothing urban.

We're genuinely looking at an area that is completely encompassed by human development.

- JULIE: We're looking at just how bobcats move in the city areas.

It started out with cameras.

Cameras have been very important, not only to see the number of animals but to find those hotspots, where we can catch them in a quick and efficient manner.

We've gotten quite a few bobcats on camera.

Let's see what we've got.

On cameras where we do get bobcat traffic, that's where we'll put our traps.

Opossum, armadillo, mmm hmm, and then another bobcat walks by.

I thought we were going to have a hard time finding cats to catch in these really urban spots, but there's no shortage of bobcats, and so I think people will be surprised.

- DEREK: When they're developing a golf course they don't realize that the strip of trees between the fairways is serving as a corridor for wildlife, but it works quite well for us.

[water flowing] - NARRATOR: In Euless, all around the Texas Star golf course, wildlife corridors are identified.

Then the real intensive work begins.

- Between seven to ten traps are open at once.

With one person running a trap line, I can't do much more than that, and we've been trapping for about 10 weeks.

That's good.

- NARRATOR: Julie is no stranger to catching carnivores.

She has worked with mountain lions and wolves in other states, but baiting for bobcats has its own challenges.

- DEREK: The trouble is when you put a lot of scent down, a lot of stinky, nasty stuff and then you're crawling on your belly.

[laughs] - NARRATOR: Odors only go so far.

- DEREK: Make it rain!

- NARRATOR: Attracting bobcats requires some cat psychology.

- They're like housecats, they're curious, they like smells, they like feathers, they like furry, shiny stuff, and if they see something move, it's going to catch their attention.

And fortunately I can use that to my advantage.

- NARRATOR: Making cat lures isn't exactly glamorous.... - DEREK: We're all about recycling.

- JULIE: Fresh ones.

I don't do rotten road kill.

- NARRATOR: But there is plenty of evidence that the custom cat toys work.

- It's batting at it.

That's awesome.

[laughs] You can tell this one's got it and it lets go and it's probably flinging around.

- NARRATOR: Of course, getting a cat's attention and getting it to enter a trap are different things.

Bobcats are smart, wary, and rarely seen.

Just ask someone who works where a cat can be seen daily.

- MELISSA SOOTER: Bobcats are about twice the size of your typical housecat.

They are native, but people don't usually see them because they're most active when a lot of people are either just getting up or they're going to bed for the night.

But they are out there.

They're named the bobcat for their short little bobbed tail.

And uh, just so curious.

You can just tell that they're constantly thinking.

- DEREK: Those are just a lot of nice, natural funnels.

- NARRATOR: Derek and Julie must be constantly thinking as well: monitoring cameras, moving traps, and freshening baits.

- JULIE: I can put fresh raw meat- squirrel meat, rabbit meat- in a trap and they still won't go in, just because it's like, meh, I'm just going to go eat my own squirrel.

They're not food motivated typically, just because they're so good at what they do.

So that's where it comes into like just keying in on their curiosity.

- NARRATOR: It may seem curious that a carnivore could even make a living in this kind of landscape.

- JULIE: Oh yeah, that's Euless Avenue so that's another un-collared cat.

- DEREK: Oh wow.

Eight o'clock at night, cars moving by it just doesn't even care.

- NARRATOR: The number of cats photographed suggests they are finding enough to eat.

- DEREK: The rats, the mice, the squirrels, the rabbits, the really small, fuzzy critters that may be quick to us, but not too quick for a bobcat.

- NARRATOR: Between the roads and buildings, greenbelts and watersheds connect hunting and hiding places, but exactly how cats use these habitats is not fully understood.

And that is what the study is all about.

The study area stretches from the edge of Fort Worth to Irving and Grand Prairie.

GPS collars will store data about daily movements and ranges of individual cats for an entire year.

But first, the cats must be captured.

[trap door closes] Some traps can send an alert when tripped, but Julie still checks every trap twice a day.

- Driving to check traps -- literally a wild bobcat chase.

Here we go.

- NARRATOR: After ten weeks of trapping... - This road is due for a bobcat.

- NARRATOR: ...13 cats have been captured- a few too small for collars.

Nine cats now wear the GPS loggers, but one more is needed for a full range of data.

- JULIE: She's thinking about it.

- NARRATOR: The pressure is on.

Julie's friend, Jim, has come from Idaho to help trap for a week.

- I'm a wildlife biologist for the Nez Perce tribe.

Julie and I worked on a wolf project up there.

- NARRATOR: But so far the trappers are plagued by a different animal.

- JULIE: Oh, little opossum.

Just kind of convince this guy to go on about his morning.

The bar is closed.

And there he goes.

When you're trying to catch certain types of animals, you're always at the risk of catching by-catch species.

Bye bye, dude.

Don't come back.

I missed a cat last night because something fell on the door and made it close, but she got on top of the trap at one point, looking through the front of the trap.

Maybe she'll come back and check it out again, if the weather holds up.

[rhythmic music] [thunder] Nothing.

[sigh] [rhythmic music] - DEREK: Capturing the animals, meeting your quota is your biggest fear at the beginning, because you don't know what it's going to be like.

Unless someone's done it before, we have no idea if it's possible or not.

- JULIE: Alright, nothing here.

[sigh] I no longer have my camera on my tree.

My trap has been messed with.

It really sucks.

[rhythmic music] Nothing happening.

Everything's come to a grinding halt it seems.

We're going to get this bobcat.

We have to, or we're going to go crazy!

[laughs] Opossum.

I'm somewhat frustrated with opossums at the moment.

Go on!

[opossum growling] It's better than a stolen camera day.

He was a wonderful good squirrel.

- JIM: A-1 in his prime.

- JULIE: Now he looks terrible.

[rhythmic music] ♪ ♪ Tracks?

Those are bobcat.

Well there was probably a opossum in the trap so they couldn't go in.

I don't know how much more of this I can even take.

Always hope for tomorrow.

- I was hopeful that we'd catch at least one bobcat.

Time's up for me, I have to leave this afternoon.

It's disappointing not to catch one, but I fully understand that's how it goes.

- DEREK: 4:52 PM, I was just about to head out the door and I got a text, so I came to check the trap and sure enough, there was a bobcat in the trap.

Right next to a very busy road, right at rush hour.

[bobcat growls] - NARRATOR: Derek is first on the scene.

[bobcat snarls] - DEREK: If I had to guess, I'd say it's a juvenile male.

Looks like he's a healthy animal.

- NARRATOR: Julie is just dropping Jim at the airport.... - Bobcat!

- NARRATOR: ...but still happy for the news.

[cheers on phone] [laughs] The crew is soon assembled.

- Yes!

- This would have been an excellent April Fool's Day joke.

- JULIE: If this is a joke, I'm going to be very upset!

[laughs] - NARRATOR: But this time it's no opossum.

- JULIE: Let's do 16 pounds for him.

- NARRATOR: The crew readies a sedative cocktail to be delivered with great care and an extra-long syringe.

- JULIE: And Derek's going to act as my decoy to kind of keep the cat facing him.

[growling] Got him.

It takes about five minutes for the drug to take effect, so we'll walk away and let him go down.

We'll wait until about 7:45.

[claps] Good sleepy kitty.

We'll go to a much quieter location, not only for us, but also for the bobcat.

Because even though they're down and immobilized, they can still hear, they can still sense light and fast movement that can kind of make their heart rate faster so we want to keep things as calm and quiet as possible throughout the capture.

Thank you kindly, sir.

He's not able to blink right now, so this is just artificial tears.

- NARRATOR: The cat is thoroughly looked after, while being thoroughly weighed, measured and documented.

- JULIE: Seven point five.

Some of these cats have a lot of spotting, almost leopard-like, but yeah, these arm bars, that's how we identify them.

They're very easy to see in nighttime photos, so that's what we get pictures of.

[shutter clicks] - DEREK: Okay.

- JULIE: You want to get good solid information, because this is a lot of work that goes into every bobcat we catch.

- DEREK: We're very excited and happy that we're adding another member to our research group...

The fact is we still have a job to do and we don't take it very lightly.

- NARRATOR: As night falls, additional data is gathered, but not only for their study.

- JULIE: This is for parasitology, this is for disease, this is for genetics, this is for rodenticide.

We're getting a lot of information from these bobcats.

- NARRATOR: But for Julie and Derek's research... - JULIE: Okay, kitty.

- NARRATOR: ...fitting the tracking collar is the most important step.

- DEREK: In a year, when we get that collar back, it could potentially be giving us 3,500 locations.

- JULIE: Perfect.

Alright he's kind of waking up.

[trap rattling] [dramatic music] Just set it down.

It's always stressful doing this because you take the animal's well being in your hands when you work with them like this, but we did everything right, and everything went really well.

He's doing great right now.

- DEREK: It's relieving to see that the animal is coming out in great shape.

- JULIE: Just give him like 20 minutes.

- Last cat captured and collared- excellent day!

- Having good days like today makes me know we can get the most out of this effort.

[bobcat snarls] I didn't even do the thermometer, okay?

I think he's good.

[dramatic music] - NARRATOR: Four and a half months after the release, bobcat B14 and most of the study's cats can be regularly located by the radio beacons on their collars.

It will be months before the remaining collars drop off and reveal new secrets about the lives of urban bobcats, but the study is already shedding new light on how their habitats overlap with ours.

- DEREK: He was spotted about here?

- Yeah.

- But he was also spotted about here?

- JULIE: We've got cats sleeping under roadways, they're hunting on golf courses.

We're finding that bobcats are in neighborhoods on a daily basis and people rarely see them and rarely have problems.

If you see a bobcat, don't approach it or try to feed it.

As long as we respect them as wild animals, we can continue to share this space with wildlife.

- DEREK: They're here.

They're valuable.

They're excellent critters, and to strive in an urban environment, that's incredible.

[dramatic music] Celebrating a century of Texas State Parks.

[birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] - NARRATOR: 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.