- 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 & Wildlife... - They try to catch as much water as they can in the soil.

Springs are still running in the midst of this historic drought.

- The phone calls always come in during trout season.

Everybody is wanting to know when we're stocking, especially the Canyon tailrace.

- Hey, there he goes!

- They're a true icon of the southwestern desert.

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

[guitar music] - CHASE CURRIE: It's a very difficult environment to ranch in.

There's not a consistent rainfall pattern.

- DANIEL KUNZ: In South Texas, as far as the climate goes, we have very frequent droughts.

You know, if we're not in a drought, we're probably about to go into one.

It creates a lot of challenges managing for livestock or wildlife.

- CHASE: Bottom line, we manage for diversity.

♪ ♪ - I'm Joseph Fitzsimons and we're here at the San Pedro Ranch.

We're in southwest Texas, about as south and west as you can get and still be in Texas.

[bird chirps] From the closest point to the border, it's about three miles to the Rio Grande, the Rio Bravo.

Our grandfather bought this ranch in 1932.

And our father operated it for many years.

And then my sister and I have been very fortunate to operate the San Pedro as well.

♪ ♪ - It was originally a Spanish land grant from 1812.

- This is the marker of the King's Highway, the lower road of the Camino Real up to San Antonio.

So people have been crossing here for a while.

We're not the first ones here.

San Pedro Springs, mentioned in early Conquistadors' and explorers' journals starting in the early 1700s.

It's a very special place.

It's very much like it's been for the last hundred years.

[music] [clanging] - I'm Chase Currie.

I'm the general manager here.

From an operations standpoint, our two sources of revenue are wildlife and cattle.

Pretty bull.

[chute opens] [upbeat music] We just finished weaning our fall-born calves.

♪ ♪ We feed them, just helps gentle them down, relieves the stress, and then here in another four or five days, they'll go on to pasture.

- Come on boys.

- CHASE: These cattle can go elsewhere and and do very well.

- JOSEPH: They're not going to go anyplace that's tougher than here.

- CHASE: It's important to the family that this ranch remain a working ranch.

While the cattle are important from an economic standpoint, they're also very important in what we do here on the ground to manage for a more complete landscape.

Currently we are in the worst drought that this particular area of Texas has experienced in roughly 90 years, here in southwest Dimmit County.

We didn't think it could get any drier, but it has.

[cows moo] Despite the historic drought, we've been very diligent in our grazing.

Keeping the cattle on the move, resting pastures.

We actually have the cattle in a pasture right now that we haven't been in in almost a year.

We don't move cattle based on a day on the calendar, but it's more of a planned grazing.

- Managing their wildlife and their livestock numbers to leave some residual habitat in these dry times, it's really a testament on how they operate down here, the habitat is still as healthy as it is even in this historic drought we're in right now.

When you do get the rains back, it's going to respond.

They've been a great partner with Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Very good cover plant as well for quail.

Every year we come out here and we evaluate the browsing pressure on the woody species out here.

This is a fresh deer bite.

[clicker] We come out here and we count stem tips with Chase and monitor this over the long term and we set harvest rates also based on this.

So it's been very enjoyable to work with the San Pedro Ranch every year to do this.

When you have very little herbaceous and grass cover, you get a lot of runoff, and you lose a lot of water off your property.

So they try to catch as much water as they can in the soil.

And you can really see that, that the springs are still running in the midst of this historic drought that we're under right now in this part of South Texas.

- Watershed management is really key to how you manage an arid rangeland.

- DANIEL: Some of their primary creek bottoms, they have restricted from livestock grazing to protect those sensitive areas.

And the stuff they have done here as far as repairing riparian function is also really interesting.

- We've worked with Bill Zeedyk out of New Mexico to restore eroded creek bed, basically.

- By correcting these longstanding erosion problems, we've been able to slow the water down and help it percolate to the water table for the San Pedro Springs.

- Prepare the land for when it does rain, and that's the key.

- DANIEL: They have a wetland area that they built.

[camera] - PAMELA: It was an old caliche pit.

We've re-seeded with lots and lots of natives and wildflowers.

- So we took one of the least productive areas on the ranch and turned it into one of the most productive areas on the ranch.

♪ ♪ Probably one of the biggest steps they took to preserve the San Pedro was the conservation easement.

- JOSEPH: We donated a conservation easement, so this ranch will stay together and be a whole habitat, whether we own it or not.

- And this is in perpetuity, this is forever.

You are saying to your children and generations on, we value these very special sensitive areas, that they're worth protecting.

[bee buzzing] [quail calls] - JOSEPH: Our father was an early adopter of holistic resource management.

Our cattle operation is part of our wildlife management operation, and holistic management doesn't treat those as being on separate lands because they're not.

Our father always told us to manage for the drought, and the times of rain and plenty will take care of themselves.

[film projector clicking] - PAMELA: I can definitely remember my dad instructing me on riding, he was an excellent horseman.

It's a passing of knowledge and tradition.

[music] Joseph putting Hayden on the horse, you're handing off the knowledge and the appreciation to each subsequent generation.

Now we're in our 5th generation, and I like to think of my grandfather looking down, smiling broadly.

- I hope my children and grandchildren have an opportunity to experience the challenges of managing a great piece of habitat like this.

Running a working ranch, you learn a lot managing through tough times.

- PAMELA: The name of the game is adaptability.

[music] - JOSEPH: We feel it is a tribute to our grandfather and our father and the whole family, to keep the place going.

[inspirational music] It's a great life.

[water bubbling] - NARRATOR: It's stocking time at the A. E. Wood Fish Hatchery.

[splash] The hatchery raises thousands and thousands of rainbow trout.

[splash] And in the winter, they're loaded up and off to the Guadalupe River.

- ANGLER: There go the fish.

There they go!

- CHRIS: Each stocking we put out 2,200 rainbow trout.

[splashing] They are divided up on all the stocking sights that we have.

The phone calls always come in during trout season, everybody's wanting to know when we're stocking certain water bodies, especially the canyon tailrace.

[splashing] [reel cranks] - ANGLER: There you go!

Fly guy!

Hey, there ya goes!

[laughter] [camera clicks] [water splashing] - CHRIS: One of the reasons why rainbow trout are possible on the Guadalupe River, just below canyon tailrace, is because when they dammed up the Guadalupe River, it actually enabled the water temperatures to stay cool year round.

[upbeat music] Any time that we go to one of these stockings, the fisherman follow!

- You see the tiniest little movement.

There he is!

And I just love catching these fish.

They'll jump, they'll run, they'll do everything for you!

It's a blast!

I love getting in the water with them.

I got three pairs of waders in the car, and here I am in my jeans... soaked!

[laughs] - I'm just using um, power bait right now.

Yep, we got her.

Ok. We're ready to go fishing.

Come on take it, thank you, thank you!

That's how you catch a fish!

[laughs] [fish splashing] We used to catch these in Canada, that's where I'm from.

So this is a real treat for me!

Ohhh!

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [western music] - NARRATOR: Along a lonesome stretch of highway, on the furthest fringe of Big Bend country, Bonnie McKinney and Robert Perez are out to capture some birds.

- BONNIE: May be a little early.

Oh there's one right there and one right there.

[playful music] - BONNIE: There's tons of tracks.

We've been trapping birds at Candelaria, Texas.

- ROBERT: There's one right there.

- NARRATOR: The birds they are after are Gambel's quail, a species found across the desert Southwest.

- ROBERT: Once you get into New Mexico and Arizona the species becomes much more common, but in our state, it's very limited.

- NARRATOR: The goal is to re-establish these birds further east, where they were once also found.

While Gambel's have fared better than some, every quail species in the state has lost some ground.

[fluttering wings] - ROBERT: There are four species of quail in Texas: the Montezuma quail, the Gambel's quail, the scaled quail, also called blue quail, and the bobwhite.

[bobwhite call] Certainly the most popular and well known species is the bobwhite quail.

- NARRATOR: But the iconic bobwhite is in trouble.

- ROBERT: Over the last twenty to thirty years we've seen serious declines across its entire range, including Texas.

Fundamentally, conservationists agree that the root cause is changes in the quality and quantity of habitat.

- NARRATOR: Interest in restoring this vanishing native habitat has brought conservation groups and private landowners together, at the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge.

- Nice to meet you guys, I'm Robert.

- It's real exciting to see this group of folks and private landowners just come together for a common cause.

[prairie chicken booms] Both of these birds as well as other grassland bird species require this prairie habitat.

- NARRATOR: Prairie grasses provide shelter, seeds and insects for birds, but that's not all.

- This is a sample of a native grass.

This plant contributes to the health of the land.

This is the way you conserve moisture.

Man has come in and ripped out a lot of this native grass and planted what we call improved grasses, which is really not improved, they're invasive species, like Bermuda grass, and Bahia grass, and they don't give back to the soil.

They take from the soil.

- NARRATOR: To restore native grasses where they have been lost, seed is harvested from a tall grass prairie at the Attwater Refuge.

[tractor running] - JIM: Well obviously the best seed to have is to have local ecotypes.

Because if it grows here, it's going to grow down the road.

Out here it's little bluestem that's your target plant.

We found out that we couldn't do it alone.

To have more birds, you had to have connectivity.

You had to have one ranch attached to another to another.

And now we're working with landowners that represent around 30,000 acres, and about 10 counties.

[harvester dumps seed] - We know from years and years of research, and it's a very well-researched bird, we know that habitat's the key.

- NARRATOR: And as habitat is improved, through native grass seeding as well as managed grazing and prescribed fire, not just bobwhite benefit.

[birds call] - JON: In general, grassland birds in North America have been declining over the past 50 years or so and it's because of loss of large scale habitat in big landscapes.

We can produce quail, we can produce habitat that makes more birds.

We just need more of it.

- NARRATOR: In the South Texas brush country, a different kind of quail needs some habitat help-the scaled, or blue quail.

- ERIC GRAHMANN: Scaled quail have declined at about five percent per year in South Texas for the last 20 years.

- NARRATOR: Researchers from Texas A&M Kingsville are on the case.

- Habitat's looking pretty good here.

We've been doing a general scaled quail ecology study on five different ranches... - Looking much better.

- ...and the landowners have graciously allowed us access to their properties, to put radio transmitters on birds and allow our graduate students to follow them and collect the data that they need.

[quail calling] - NARRATOR: There is a lot to learn about this South Texas sub-species.

[western music] - ERIC: We don't have really any good idea of survival, general nest success, all these general ecology type questions.

- BEN OLSEN: A lot of this is fairly new, what we're finding with this research.

Here in South Texas, they're liking the thicker brush.

Watch that cactus.

At the rate it's being lost, it's going to be really important in the future that we understand what happens when we attempt to restore the habitat to the way it was before the declines.

- NARRATOR: What is already understood is that large areas of rangeland which once held scaled quail have been transformed to monocultures.

- ERIC: Wow.

This is buffelgrass.

- NARRATOR: Such grass might be good for cattle grazing, but for quail, it's a problem.

- Quail can't walk through this.

- ERIC: This is a pretty extensive barrier, it appears.

- NARRATOR: So, part of the research on this ranch, is temporarily turning this, into this.

With exotic grass removed, it will be re-seeded.

- We'll be planting a very diverse mix of native grasses and forbs.

- NARRATOR: Further research will measure quail response to the restored habitat.

[quail calling] - ERIC: Beautiful bird.

I think they're a symbol of unspoiled native habitat.

- NARRATOR: Another beautiful bird, the Montezuma quail, once ranged across the Texas Hill Country and Trans-Pecos.

In the state today, it is limited to some western mountains, and only the southwest edge of the Edwards Plateau.

[Montezuma quail call] - When we first bought property here back in 2000, one of the things I noticed was that we had Montezuma quail here.

[quail calls] Kind of a relict population here in the Hill Country.

I started talking to some of my neighbors about the fact that we had the birds and what we could do habitat-wise to possibly improve things for the birds.

- NARRATOR: The Hefts and their neighbors work together to improve wildlife habitat on their individual properties.

- Same scenario, where a big ranch broke up, smaller places, people removing cedar, doing things 100, 200 acre parcel at a time, and people seeing and hearing these birds.

- The first Montezuma we saw on the place went right under this bush.

They just froze, and I didn't know what they were.

- DAVID: We've done some prescribed burning to try to help the grass cover come back, and we've gone in a lot of the thick cedar areas and cleared the junipers.

The birds very much select for that habitat on the left that's been cleared and not for that closed-canopy cedar brake you see on the right.

The birds, you know, preferring areas that you have good grass cover.

We've had birds nesting right here around the house.

- ERIC: Really he's done a great job with this piece of property here.

This will be point number one that we'll sample here.

- NARRATOR: Call surveys and further study by Texas Parks and Wildlife and A&M Kingsville will determine if habitat work is increasing Montezuma numbers, but anecdotal evidence looks promising.

[quail calls] - DAVID: We really like to see them because of course knowing you're dealing with a species that's been so reduced in range and numbers, hopefully together we can kind of help them to recover over some more of their historic habitat.

[Gambel's quail calls] - NARRATOR: Back in the Big Bend... - MIKE: There's a bunch over there too, there's a trap full.

- NARRATOR: ...Gambel's quail are taking the bait.

- ROBERT: The trapping's going very well.

- NARRATOR: Biologists work quickly to collect the birds.

- MIKE: Three... - ROBERT: Once the birds come in the trap, you don't want to leave them there too long... - MIKE: Seven.

Alright, 14.

Not a bad start.

- ROBERT: You're checking traps, you're taking birds out, you're resetting the trap.

[seeds falling] You've got to be actively driving up and down the road, checking traps on the fly.

- There's one.

- NARRATOR: The team gathers the birds, and collects data about each quail, fitting them with identifying leg bands.

[western music] - BONNIE: I love these birds.

[western music] They're the most talkative.

- NARRATOR: Bonnie McKinney works on the land where these birds will be restored and originally proposed this cooperative project.

- BONNIE: I'm the wildlife coordinator at the Adams Ranch, which is actually called El Carmen Land and Conservation Company.

We were really wanting to bring the Gambel quail back.

Historically they were found 10 miles up the road at the Black Gap.

- NARRATOR: Both location and extensive habitat improvement have made El Carmen an ideal reintroduction site.

- BONNIE: Through the work that we've done landscape-wise, opening up the floodplain, preventing the erosion, putting in waters for wildlife, created some very good Gambel's quail habitat.

88 birds.

- NARRATOR: So, with a suitable home awaiting... - BONNIE: That's a lot of birds!

- NARRATOR: ...and a full load on hand... ...it's time to hit the road.

[western music] - ROBERT: They're kept in the transport cages overnight, and then the following morning they're released into the new habitat at El Carmen.

[ATV started and moves out] - NARRATOR: As soon as they are in place, and given an opening... the birds eagerly return to their former range.

[birds flying away] - Everybody flew strong.

That's great.

No injuries, no mortalities, so that's wonderful.

- NARRATOR: And there's more good news.

After two seasons, the birds are raising chicks.

- Knowing that we're working on a project that's helping bolster populations of the Gambel's quail, it's exciting.

[radio telemetry beeps] - NARRATOR: There is much to be done to improve the state of quail in Texas, but there is also hope for a brighter future.

[quail calls] - JON: We've seen the results.

In some of these areas where we're doing this work, we're hearing them in areas where we haven't heard them.

[quail call] - NARRATOR: One thing is already clear - the state of quail depends on the state of their native habitat.

And improving that will depend on people working together.

- Our birds have to have places to go.

We're losing habitat every day.

And by linking these properties up, I think we can make a big difference.

- Unfortunately quail don't have any say-so in the matter, and it's going to be up to us to take care of those who can't take care of themselves.

[western music] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [water flowing] [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.