- 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... - A lot of people don't realize that we have some wild parrots in Texas, including the red-crowned parrot.

- I saw my pole getting bent, pulled it out, and sure enough, had that big black drum.

- First fish of the night.

- We're up in the Panhandle of Texas and we're studying mule deer movement and survival.

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

- CULLEN HANKS: I think that there's something about parrots that is special just in their gregarious nature.

They're very interactive in a way that I think people connect with.

- KARL BERG: Their kind of bodily movements, you know, the way they kind of turn their head.

They're so interesting to just watch.

- CLIFF SHACKELFORD: You see a group hanging out, having fun, partying sort-of.

As a human, you see a lot of yourself in these parrots.

- NARRATOR: In the very south of Texas, a team of wildlife sleuths has gathered to share information on one of the state's most mysterious wild birds.

These are the parrot investigators.

- People in Dallas and Houston have no idea there are parrots down here, and a lot of people don't know that many of these individuals are wild, and wary, and came here on their own.

They're native!

A lot of people don't realize that parrots are wild too, and they do better in the wild.

And we have some wild parrots in Texas, including the red-crowned parrot.

- NARRATOR: Little is known about wild red-crowns, but nature tracker Cullen Hanks in on the case.

- ...they line up on the telephone wires.

- I always see them on the houses in those neighborhoods.

- Yeah?

One of the things we do know is that they have adapted to live in cities in South Texas.

- NARRATOR: Based on tips from eyewitnesses, Cullen is convinced to set up an old-fashioned stakeout, teaming up with local biologist Tony Manahan.

- This is right when they showed up last night.

- Every time I've had them, it's been a little darker.

- NARRATOR: They're looking to get a few of the facts straight.

- When we started looking at it, nobody knew how many parrots there are in South Texas.

But we know the general area where they come, where they aggregate at the end of the day.

[mysterious playful music] They're out there.

- Over there!

- Yeah!

Over here.

[parrots call] - NARRATOR: One they spot the gang, the chase is on.

- It's very hard to follow them.

We're on foot as humans, trying to keep up.

They're aloft, flying, and they can cover so much more ground than we can.

- CULLEN: Wow, look at all those.

It's tricky to get... Oh here!

It's seems kind of simple, you know.

There are the parrots.

You count them- one, two, three...

But when you see them, it's just this raucous kind of movement of activity, and it's really difficult to actually count them.

It's just impossible when they're flying around to get a precise number.

Hopefully having multiple observers will help.

We have one ornithologist, but we have so many more eyes on the ground when we engage many birders throughout the state.

- NARRATOR: One of those eyes on the ground is Dr. Karl Berg.

He's a bit of a surveillance expert.

- DR. BERG: Most of my interest is concerned with acoustic communication.

What other pet can insult you in French and Spanish and German?

[chuckles] ...given the right training!

- NARRATOR: He thinks he's found a clue.

By analyzing the vocalizations they make, he's been able to ID their contact calls, or codenames.

- Parrots arguably have the most sophisticated imitative vocal abilities of any non-humans, including all the primates, believe it or not.

- NARRATOR: He's hoping to go deeper, by bugging the homes of parrot families, like he once did with these Venezuelan parrots.

[baby parrots chirp] To plant the mics, he needs a man on the inside.

He turns to research assistant, Caleb Arellano.

- CALEB: I've been wanting to work with parrots for like the last six years.

Finally being able to do so is like a dream come true.

- NARRATOR: It's here at the Southmost Preserve that Caleb gets his supplies.

- So this is- they have like three different piles of the PVC pipe on the Preserve around here.

So, what we're doing is we're gonna be using this irrigation PVC pipe in order to make the nest boxes.

This is a prototype one.

And it's a lot thicker and if you pick it up, it's a lot heavier.

So, we have the nest liners and we're gonna be cutting out a section of the wire so that the birds can come in and they can use the wires to climb down and climb up.

- Red-crowned parrots like to nest in cavities, tree hollows.

Red-crowned parrot's pretty particular.

They don't like something that's too small or too big, kind of like Goldilocks-- it has to be just right.

- NARRATOR: The palm trees which once forested this area are now in short supply.

In places where their turf hasn't already been taken over by farmland, humans often remove dead trees, seeing them as a hazard.

Once installed, these nest boxes might give the birds the space they need to raise their young in a place where we can watch over them.

Because a lack of homes is not be the only problem: This may also be a case of kidnapping.

- Unlike a lot of other endangered, they're not necessarily under pressure from the pet industry.

- NARRATOR: Targeted by poachers looking to make a quick buck, red-crowned parrots are valuable on the black market.

Often taken right of the nest, baby parrots are sold in shady deals like this one, caught on video in an undercover sting operation.

[police sirens] They are targeted for their speech.

A talking bird is too good to resist for some people looking for a novelty pet.

And all too often, the chicks end up in the wrong hands.

[chicks chirp] - They're losing a lot of individuals from people capturing them and selling them in flea markets and pet stores.

U.S.

Fish and Wildlife is very interested and has recently nominated it for a candidate for listing for possible threatened or endangered species status.

[chirping] - So how do we know this could be on the way to extinction?

Well scientists put that together by looking at population sizes and how they change over time.

- NARRATOR: And to do that, a search party is being gathered at the local Audubon Society.

- ...we are really grateful that some of y'all are participating in the survey here in the Harlingen area.

I think it's really going to help to have multiple observers.

So, what I've been doing is just reaching out to different groups that might want to participate, some of which were already tracking parrots on their own, and trying to coordinate efforts so that we do this all at the same time.

- Okay, so this is the parrot that we are looking for.

This is the red-crowned parrot...

I was asked to help organize all the volunteers.

We had four towns that were cooperating in this study: in McAllen, Weslaco, Harlingen, and Brownsville.

- We might have a significant chunk of the global population of red-crowned parrots right here in South Texas.

We're coordinating this wide effort of citizen scientists to help us count these parrots.

- NARRATOR: Teams of birders are combing the Valley to uncover some of the mysteries about this talkative bird.

- DR. BERG: You know, there's no rule that says they all have to come here.

They could be going somewhere else.

- We all go to specific areas where we expect the birds to roost to see if they actually show up to where we expect them to.

By doing it all at the same time, we can validate that they are individual birds.

- NARRATOR: And with a greater understanding comes a respect for their wild nature.

- People just think that they belong in a cage, and that they're a pet.

So this roost survey is going to hopefully answer some questions, and the big one is "How many do we have?"

[parrots call] - NARRATOR: These parrot investigators are building a case to make sure the red-crowned parrot always has a home here in Texas.

Celebrating a century of Texas State Parks.

[seagulls squawking] [seagulls squawking] [seagulls squawking] - The pier is 1,622 feet long.

It is great fishing there for black drum, red drum, speckled trout, flounder.

Plenty spacious for everybody to be able to go out and enjoy a good day of fishing.

[seagulls squawking] [wheels rolling across pier] - Wow, Dad, that was a far cast, geez!

Getting some bites here.

It's actually pretty fun.

There's some big fish.

My grandpa's caught a couple of big fish.

- This is called a gafftop.

This is a catfish you can eat.

Your daddy bring his camera?

- DAD: Smile.

Say cheesy.

- GIRL: I'm getting some good bites.

- DAD: Reel it up, babe.

- GIRL: He's a strong fish.

It's really cool.

It's actually my first saltwater fish.

- EDWIN: It is perfect for your novice fisher.

- I have no idea what I'm doing.

[laughs] - Catch your shark.

I wish y'all luck!

- EDWIN: It is ADA accessible, so it does have some rails that drop a little bit lower for anybody that just be able to come out and fish comfortably.

- Not at work, so that's good.

I love it.

I love it.

- Well, just spending a little time here before the sun sets.

After hours, that's when the bite really starts.

- I don't know, I'm just kind of throwing it out there.

See if anything hits it, to be honest.

[laughs] - CHILD: Just put him on the ground.

- EDWIN: We do have an overnight activity permit that allows you to stay past 10:00 PM, so you can fish all night long at the fishing pier.

- ANGLER: A speckled trout.

- The part I like the most is, whenever we catch a fish, Lolo or Pop take a picture of it.

It took about one second before I freaked out.

I was so freaked out, I was like, "We gonna put it back in the water."

[laughter] - WOMAN: Whatever.

- MOM: Get a fish yet?

- BOY: Maybe!

- MOM: Oh, it took your bait!

- BOY: Ah, man!

- EDWIN: Later in the evenings, the popular spot at the fishing pier is towards the end of the pier.

- [laughs] I mean, it's only 10 minutes in.

I saw my pole getting bent.

Pulled it back, and sure enough, I had that big black drum.

It was awesome.

- EDWIN: We have a lot of our seasoned anglers that like to come out.

And what they're doing is they're fishing for black drum.

- ANGLER: First fish of the night.

- EDWIN: They're bringing these big monster black drum and they're just basically measuring those, taking pictures, and then just releasing them back into the water.

So that is a popular spot.

- All right, let's throw him back.

[water splashes] - ANGLER 1: Big old, big ugly.

41-inch drum.

- Can we touch it?

Aaah!

Slimy!

- ANGLER: Guessing the stairs would be the best way to let him down, huh?

[waves lapping] Whoo!

- CAMERAMAN: What next?

- I don't know.

Hopefully another one just like that.

[waves lapping] [playful music] - WARREN [on radio]: Are you in contact with the helicopter?

- JACOB: Yeah.

- WARREN [on radio]: All right, well, we're hearing 660 still.

I don't know where the chopper is.

They should be able to spot us I think.

- NARRATOR: From the back of a pickup truck... to the seat of a helicopter... these Texans are on the hunt.

But they aren't after trophies or meat.

They're hunting for knowledge.

[playful music] - We're up in the Panhandle of Texas and we're studying mule deer movements and survival, and particularly how those are influenced by agriculture.

[helicopter whirs] - This is the first study of its kind that we've ever done in the state of Texas.

[mule deer breathing] Because of the many partnerships that we have established in this project, we were able to really finally get it going.

- HANDLER: One, two, three.

- SHAWN: We're going to get some outstanding information to make the best management decisions that we can for mule deer in the state of Texas.

[playful music] - Mule deer are a very interesting species.

People think about them in the Western U.S., but we do have them here in fairly healthy populations in Texas.

- They're not found throughout the state like white-tailed deer are, so they are pretty much restricted to the Panhandle or the Trans-Pesos area.

- SHAWN: They need less brush.

They need lots of lots of open expanse habitats compared to a white-tailed deer.

- But just like white-tail, mule deer are an animal people love to see.

- Yeah, I can see one right on the horizon.

That's a big bodied deer too.

- Mm-hmm.

- DANA: Landowners depend on them as a source of income for leasing their property for hunting.

So they are important to this area... [windmill rattles] ...and yet we know very little about them.

Very little research has been done on them here in the Panhandle.

[water sprays] [playful music] - NARRATOR: From row-crop farming, to pastures for livestock production, to plenty of wide open, wild spaces, [cows moo] the Panhandle of Texas is the epitome of rural.

And mule deer can be found just about anywhere.

Just ask a local.

- It's not unusual to nearly be able to walk plumb up on a mule deer.

[Rodney laughs] Or drive up on one.

If they're out in the field next to the highway, you can stop and take pictures of them.

[camera clicks] - NARRATOR: In the fall and winter, large groups of mule deer can be found grazing in wheat fields.

- It's not uncommon for us to see 150, 200 a day this time of the year.

[camera clicks] - One of the big questions of this project is dealing with agriculture land versus the rangeland like you see behind me.

Is there a difference in the nutritional value of the plants?

Or is it the deer are picking it just because it's out here and they have a buffet.

- NARRATOR: To help answer this question, researchers are looking at mule deer location data to determine what they like to eat.

- Here is a doe.

This is a cotton field and it also grows wheat during the winter, so she was using the crops in the area very frequently over the course of the year.

- NARRATOR: They are also collecting native plants... And poop samples.

- We are basically identifying the plant DNA found in the fecal material and we did observe the deer eating sand shinnery oak and sand sage so that gives us an idea of what we should be finding in the sample.

- NARRATOR: Another question is, "How far are mule deer willing to travel for a bite to eat?"

- There's thoughts both from the agency standpoint and also from landowner standpoint that these mule deer may be showing large movements relative to different agricultural crops, 10 or 20 miles maybe.

- SHAWN: That can impact the way we survey the deer.

That can impact the way we issue antler-less mule deer permits.

If we're issuing permits in a certain area, are we impacting neighbors far away that we had no idea that we would be impacting?

- NARRATOR: To answer these questions, the research team is tracking the mule deer using radio collars.

- DAVID: We've actually got two different kinds of collars.

On the fawns we've got a collar that emits a radio signal.

Those enable us to tell where the deer is and if the deer is alive or not.

- Write that it was under a barbed wire fence.

That's an indication that it broke off.

The stitching will expand on its own.

As the fawn grows, sometimes it gets hung up in other things and come off before the fawn is full grown.

- DAVID: The other kind of collars that we are putting on the adult deer have a GPS unit built into them.

So those collars are taking locations every hour for a year.

So we'll get thousands of locations on those deer day and night, every day of the year.

- NARRATOR: The tricky part is getting the radio collars on the mule deer.

[playful swing music] - THOMAS: We have deer that are radio collared that we captured back in 2015.

The radio collars all transmit a signal.

[playful swing music] Those radio collars are allowing the helicopter crew to use radio telemetry and locate them.

- Normally it takes them a little while to get the feel for the country and how the animals are reacting and how they react to the helicopter before they bring us an animal.

- THOMAS: They are going to fly to that animal, get it in an open area, fire a net around it and that net's going to hobble them up.

They'll have a gentleman get out and secure them with straps and bands... [deer bleats] and hook it up to a line underneath the helicopter.

[helicopter whirs] And the helicopter will long-line it in, then gently lower it to the ground for us to work on.

[helicopter whirs] - NARRATOR: The team works quickly to download the collar data... And take a bunch of other measurements.

- SHAWN: We've got a huge gamut of things that we're collecting on the deer while we have them in hand.

We don't normally have deer in hand.

[clippers buzz] - We're getting body weights, we're getting body condition meaning how much fat they have on them.

Fat for humans isn't necessarily a good thing but for wildlife, having some extra fat on them is a really good thing.

So body condition three and five millimeters of fat.

It helps them survive the hard times and the females will be able to reproduce better if they have more fat.

So that's a really good measure of kind of habitat quality for these animals.

- While it is amazing to be close to such magnificent animals, at the same time you have to be calm because these animals can pick up on any emotion like that.

- There's a high interest in this research project not only from the department and our partners but from private landowners as well.

- It's not every day you get to see two mule deer swinging out from underneath a helicopter.

[helicopter roars] - Been real interesting.

It's a lot better than digging post holes or fixing fence.

They got that one off my dad's place.

It's not a typical thing that we get to see and it's a pretty amazing project.

[water squirts] - DANA: We were able to capture a lot of deer today.

- DAVID: See, he was a yearling last year.

He's going to look really nice to people out in the field.

Look at that body on him.

For a two-year-old, looks like a hoss.

- Really excited to see the changes that have occurred in the deer from one year to the next.

- Do you have his weight on there?

I'm just curious.

- DANA: 112 last year, what did he weigh?

- MAN: 165.

- DANA: Wow!

- MAN: He's gained some weight.

- WARREN: Yeah, that's awesome.

- Yeah, over 50 pounds.

- WARREN: That's fantastic.

- THOMAS: One... two... three.

[playful swing music] - The deer seem to be doing really good in this area and we're excited to find out more about where they've been all year and what they've been doing.

- NARRATOR: For now, researchers will continue to monitor the deer and their various food sources.

- Tails up.

I think we got poop!

- NARRATOR: Each day brings more insight.

- LAURA: If we look at her GPS tracks, you can see that she went back and forth between the two areas quite frequently.

- If this agriculture is a good nutritional resource for the deer, we would expect those deer that are using agricultural fields to have more fat, be heavier, larger body sizes, may have larger antler sizes.

- SHAWN: There's a lot of things in there of how we do business that this information is really going to fine tune and make mule deer management better for the state and the Texas Panhandle.

[playful swing music] [water gently flowing] [water gently flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water gently flowing] [water gently flowing] [water gently flowing] [water gently flowing] [water flowing] [water gently flowing] [water gently flowing] [water gently flowing] [water gently flowing] - 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.