- 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... - I think it's impossible to stand at a place like the Devils and not have a spiritual experience.

- When we are doing events like this where we're talking to youth, it's really important for me to kind of inspire something in them.

- One of the most popular attractions at the park is the 400-foot floating fishing pier.

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

[water flowing] [water flowing] [wind blowing] [upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - The Devils River is one of these places that's just truly magical.

It's because you have this beautiful, clear blue river literally coming out of the desert.

♪ ♪ This river is the lifeblood of all of that ecosystem.

[water flowing] [upbeat music] - Well, that's why it had a name.

It's the Devil's River, and it's so rugged, so rough, so raw, so beautiful, so diverse.

- The Devils River remains the most pristine river in Texas.

It hasn't been significantly impacted by either climate change or land use, which is groundwater extraction and pumping.

- RYAN: It's a critical area, again, where that early heritage in land protection has really served as a focal point for developing the science.

[water bubbling] - DR. GREEN: The source area for these springs extends farther than the preserves.

[upbeat music] So the Nature Conservancy has worked with their neighbors in order to try to develop conservation easements on these lands to prevent that pumping.

- The thing that I find most inspiring at Dolan Falls and all the way up the river have been involved in protecting huge amounts of land through conservation easements so that it's the most protected river basin in the state.

[wind blowing] - Very early on when we became active in protecting land in the Devils River, it was very clear that we needed to understand the system better.

- SARAH: Let's go up and come down the side of this grass.

One reason this place is so special is because there's a lot of unique species that occur here.

So there are a lot of minnows that we don't find many other places in the U.S.

This is the Devils River minnow.

Ready?

- RYAN: How do these fish, like the Devils River minnow, which is a federally threatened species, where do they occur in the river?

What kind of habitat do they need?

How do they connect to the flow?

[dramatic music] - DR. GREEN: And so everything that you do out in these arid and semi-arid landscapes is interrelated.

They're very fragile.

[dramatic music] - I remember the first time I saw an absolutely dark night.

The Milky Way was laid out in a way I had never seen.

Another neat thing is I've watched all my kids have that experience at that same place and just have that exact reaction, like, whooooa.

What is that?

[laughs] That's the Milky Way.

Those are stars.

I think it's impossible to stand at a place like the Devils and not have a spiritual experience.

- It's humbling.

The geological history involved in the creation of that area has happened over eons, and then you're there but for a brief moment.

So the thing I always say is, don't screw it up.

- RYAN: I think we've got some incredible challenges, and many of those challenges are only gonna get worse.

But I do still firmly believe that there are places we can get it right.

The state of the science, the state of understanding of best practices for managing watersheds has advanced incredibly.

We do know how to do it.

There are absolutely places that we can still get it right.

[wind blowing] [calming music] [water sloshing] [eerie music] - TIM BISTER: People just love Caddo Lake.

Caddo Lake gets in your blood.

It's like a prehistoric environment with the Bald Cypress trees and the Spanish Moss hanging down.

It's beautiful and people love it.

When it's under attack like this, it really alarms people.

This is a wetland of international significance.

And we're involved in a desperate fight to save it from this most aggressive plant in the world.

[eerie music] - Giant salvinia is a threat to Caddo Lake.

[boat engine starts] I'm Tim Bister, and I'm a fisheries biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Caddo Lake is known as the only natural lake in Texas.

So it is one of our gems that we really want to be able to protect.

Giant salvinia is a floating aquatic fern from South America.

It grows very rapidly.

It can actually double in size in four to seven days.

Giant salvinia first showed up in Caddo Lake in 2006, on the Louisiana side, at one of the boat ramps.

[boat engine roaring] The worst year that we've had, there was about 6,000 acres of giant salvinia covering the Texas side of Caddo Lake.

That's about half of the water that we have.

There were areas that were so completely covered by giant salvinia and the plants growing on top of the salvinia mats, that it looked like dry land.

The main river channel that travels through Caddo Lake was completely covered by giant salvinia.

There were many areas that you couldn't get a boat through.

There were lots of people that were very concerned about the lake.

And it was a year that growth was so bad, it just really wasn't a lot that could be done.

[boat engine revs] - JOHN: You can see where they've sprayed.

There's lots of dead.

Dead is good.

I'm Jonathan Dyson.

I'm an Aquatic Invasive Species Biologist.

This is an area where we sprayed.

State contractors had come in here and done some herbicide treatments on this, and it really pushed the salvinia back.

And then we're using a combination of both the systemic herbicide that will circulate throughout the plant, as well as a contact herbicide that just burns wherever it touches.

It's still slowly, slowly dying, falling out.

What green plant is alive, our contractors are coming in and spraying.

[engine revs up] - TIM: The best strategy for invasive species management is using an integrated approach.

Using as many tools in your toolbox to control a situation.

- We've been using a combination of herbicides here recently with great success in the management of the species, and being able to maintain the open water.

In addition to that, we've been trying for well over a decade now, of using bio-control.

The giant salvinia weevil.

It's a species-specific weevil, just feeds on giant salvinia and can control it.

We've seen control out here in several places.

Parks and Wildlife raises and releases their own weevils, but we really need a lot of people doing that.

And here recently, the Caddo Bio Control Alliance has stepped up in releasing large numbers of weevils to help with this control.

- We are in Uncertain, Texas at Caddo Lake.

And what we are doing is raising giant salvinia weevils to control the giant salvinia plant.

The invasive aquatic plant, that is trying to take over Caddo Lake.

We wanted to build this greenhouse, mass produce these weevils, and get them out onto the water in large numbers, as we can.

We're Weevil Ranchers.

These are the tanks where we grow the giant salvinia.

We introduced the weevils onto the salvinia here in a controlled environment.

We raise them.

And when the population gets to the right level, we actually take the salvinia from here, put it into totes, go out to where the giant salvinia is, and release these weevils into the environment.

It's hot, hard work.

This greenhouse, in the summertime, is extremely hot.

And Texas summers, you know, the temperature gets up over 100 degrees.

It takes people who really love the environment, who love the lake, and love the area, to give so much time, and work, and effort, and sweat to protect the lake.

- Morning!

How y'all doin'?

- All these are going on the pontoon, right?

- JOHN: A lot of those people are the local people that live and utilize the lake out here.

They care because they live out here.

They're out here every day, and this is their home.

They pour their heart and soul into managing this salvinia in the lake to keep it from taking over.

- Oh, it's beautiful.

And the water...

Since the grass has died, the water's perfect all over the lake to fish.

It's a great place.

It's a magical lake.

Isn't it, Leah?

[laughing] - JOHN: I think the future of Caddo is bright.

I think a lot of people are going to be able to enjoy the lake like they always did, like the good old days they talked about.

It's extremely brittle, but something was eating on it.

But we are seeing evidence of either a moth larva, or the weevil damage itself.

- TIM: It is frustrating having an invasive species that just won't go away, knowing that no matter what we do, we're never going to get rid of the giant salvinia at Caddo Lake.

But I do have the hope that our efforts are going to help continue to keep boaters having the ability to get around the lake, to have anglers still have their places that they like to fish.

Native plants will come back.

Fish will be able to use more of the lake.

Ducks will have open water to land on.

It's all tied together.

[birds chirping] [eerie music] ♪ ♪ [bird chirping] [waves crashing] [upbeat music] - HOLLY: Today, we're out at Mustang Island State Park.

[flag rustling] So that students are able to make some connections to the coast and learn a little bit more about marine science, conservation, and what they can do to help protect our wildlife.

[waves crashing] - Surprisingly, many students have never even come to the beach.

- HOLLY: Hi, everyone, thank you guys so much for coming down here.

- HEIDI: It's in our backyard, but they never come out here.

- I'm gonna pull, maybe two or three different species of sharks out, we'll talk about how to identify them.

My name is Holly Grand, and I am the outreach and education coordinator for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Coastal Fisheries Division.

I do all kinds of things as the outreach coordinator.

I do a lot of our in-person events with our local communities along the coast, but also inland to places like Austin and Fort Worth, Dallas.

- HEIDI: It just makes it real for them.

- So this a jaw from a real shark.

- It makes it something that's not so just in their minds, something that is in existence, but they don't know really anything else about it, and it just brings everything kind of to life.

- HOLLY: This bonnet head is a male, because those appendages here.

We talked about sharks today, and specifically, I had a bunch of frozen sharks with me that we caught in some of our nets that our management teams will use to collect some of their data, so they will save some really cool unique species for me to use to bring out to outreach events like this one here.

- My favorite part of today was learning about the sharks.

- HOLLY: And like I said, if y'all wanna pick them up and hold them to take your pictures with them too, feel free to do that.

- ANDREW: We picked them up and touched them and felt the texture of their skin.

- HOLLY: Yeah, you felt the sandpaper, right?

Part of my job, what I like to talk about is put their mind at ease a little bit and maybe be a little bit less fearful of these animals and to talk about why they are important in our ecosystems.

- I love this thing.

[wave crashing] [gentle music] - HEIDI: When they're in the classroom, they hear about it and they learn about it, but really, it's this, this actual integration, doing things with their hands and seeing it in person that really concretes all of that that they've learned in the classroom.

- I had fun studying and learning about the beach and how people can interact with it and how we can also help it or make it worse.

- So when we are doing events like this where we're talking to youth, it's really important for me to kind of inspire something in them to want to conserve our wildlife, because they're gonna be the ones that will be managing them into the future.

- LILIANA: You know, we're the next generation to be out here in the world.

- HOLLY: You got it, you got it.

- So I feel like it's more important for the younger kids to start like coming up with an interest in it, because it's gonna be our time.

- HOLLY: It's pretty cool.

- It was very cool because you don't actually see a lot of female scientists in this category of science, and I just felt very inspired to be able to do that.

- 'Cause I wanna make sure everyone feels welcome, like they fit in, and they're a part of it, and nature's important for them.

We're able to see a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life and with different experiences, different personal experiences.

You know, whether they're fishermen or not or whether they're able to go to the coast or not, it's still important for us to engage with everyone.

- HEIDI: For them to have this experience where they're actually seeing, in real time, animals that depend on the resources that we have here, you know, I think that that is gonna stay with them.

[upbeat music] [waves crashing] [gentle music] - One of my favorite pastimes is simply driving around the property, just enjoying the beauty, spotting wildlife.

[ducks quacking] [birds chirping] [turkey clucking] My name is Steve Smith.

We're at Quahadi Ranch in Western Erath County.

My wife, Joan, and I live in Dallas, and we have five children.

In the early '80s, we started looking for a ranch as a getaway place from Dallas, and we kept coming back to the Cross Timbers area because it had quail.

Slowly, over the years, the quail dwindled from huntable numbers when we bought it, to virtually nothing.

- Quahadi Ranch really serves as an example of what can be done to help restore these ecosystems and restore these species.

And it resulted in an increase definitely in your nesting cover, just like little blues stem clumps like this.

This is a property that I did my masters project on with Tarleton State University in the Rolling Plains Co-Research Ranch on translocation in Northern bobwhite.

It was part of a large-scale translocation effort where we moved birds from Northwest Texas and South Texas to Quahadi Ranch to evaluate their survival and reproduction between those two different subspecies of bobwhite.

[birds fluttering] - We moved approximately 250 wild quail.

[bobwhite calling] The reason that I was interested in the translocation project was to see if one could successfully translocate bobwhite quail from one habitat to another habitat.

I'm interested in trying to have quail here again, but also the benefit of the research for future generations and other landowners who might be interested in trying the same thing.

- Not only did it give me the opportunity to conduct research, but also dozens of undergraduates at Tarleton State University and did a great job of helping train the next generation of wildlife biologists.

Mr. Smith, I mean, he's done so much, not only for largely funding a lot of the research efforts that went into this translocation project, he's also opened his gates to the public to host field days out here and try and spread the word on quail management.

And these are just in addition to all the land management that he's been doing, which is exemplary on its own.

[bulldozer rumbling] - We have, I think, four bulldozers, a road grader.

We use that equipment to maintain the property and keep it as it should be.

I believe that the Lord put us here to be stewards of His gifts, and we've been fortunate enough to be able to have a place like this and I firmly believe that we have an obligation to try to maintain it and preserve the place as God made it.

I hope that our children and grandchildren will continue to maintain and take care of the wildlife for many, many years to come.

Celebrating a century of Texas State Parks.

[upbeat music] - Lake Corpus Christi State Park is located on the South Texas plains.

[water sloshing] It's about 30 miles north of Corpus Christi.

[wind blowing] To get here you're gonna cross a lot of farm fields and ranch land.

[cow mooing] And then, when you get here, you come upon this island of green space and it makes it a pretty special place to drive up on.

[kite fluttering] - Wow.

[boy making flying noises] [laughing] - Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[boy making flying and crashing noises] - Easy.

Well, mine's The Red Baron 'cause it says The Red Baron.

- I don't know, mine's Kylo Ren.

It's what is said on the package.

- But you made a good one when you said kite la-Ren.

- Yeah I'm going to stick with that, it's kite la-Ren.

That was so funny.

[birds chirping] - This is the birding area here at Lake Corpus Christi State Park.

I start over here on this log.

We have oranges and then we have peanut butter.

A lot of them are probably sitting there waiting for me to finish this.

[birds chirping] It's really calm up here and quiet.

Good morning.

[birds chirping] This is my favorite part of the day, coming up here in the morning, and hearing all the birds and it's really relaxing.

[birds chirping] The woodpecker that landed on the suet log, he's a Golden-Fronted Woodpecker.

A lot of people come and wanna, that's what they want to see, the Golden-Fronted Woodpecker.

- ORLANDO: This is the Catfish Trail Loop.

So, let's go.

It's one of our more natural trails that we can get into the thorn scrub.

And it's just a mile looping trail, it winds, so there's a little hill and an overall moderate hike.

[birds chirping] The Golden-Fronted Woodpecker up top.

- ELLIONA: Oh wow.

- ORLANDO: Has a nice gold crown.

[hikers laughing] - ELLIONA: I think the hour-long hike definitely better than just going on it by yourself.

- ORLANDO: All right, guys, let's just be really silent.

I was hoping to see one of these.

- You get some things that are pointed out that you might not even see when you're hiking by yourself.

- What we're looking at here is either a Black Vulture or a juvenile Turkey Vulture.

Adult Turkey Vultures, if you look on your field guide, have a bright red head.

Black vultures, all black head.

And they're shorter.

[peppy music] - ROBBIE: One of the most popular attractions at the park is the 400-foot floating fishing pier.

So there's plenty of space for fishermen to spread out.

- But I like during the week.

Sometimes I'm all by myself out here [laughing], just me and the birds and the fish.

[reel clicking] Come on up here.

Good size crappie.

Usually I actually catch a few more than this.

[laughing] Think I got enough for lunch already.

- There you go.

- I think I've been camping here for 10 times.

No, I didn't be camping, oh yeah, I've been camping here for three times.

- There's a lot of fish here.

And that's where I caught these two fish.

Ten inches.

[gentle music] - I see it, it looks like it gets food.

I'm sure it is a swan or something.

[bird honking] Oh, look, it got food.

That's a big bird.

[gentle music] [people chattering] - ROBBIE: Some of these people have been coming back for generations.

[children laughing] - KID: Wait now I spin.

- ROBBIE: We have people that come and camp here with their families year after year and this is their special place and where they make their family memories.

That's what's special about it to me.

- ORLANDO: One of the most unique spots in South Texas where you can enjoy freshwater fishing and swimming.

Really an all-in-one package here at Lake Corpus Christi State Park.

[waves gently crashing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [woodpecker pecking] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [bird chirping] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] 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.