- 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... - On solving the case like this, you'll have illegal dumping.

They can't throw out pigs on the side of the road.

- My earliest memories of the ranch are driving around on our old Dodge pickup, looking at wildlife all over the ranch, and it was a lot of fun.

- The biggest thing is the panicking.

If you can get over the panicking and just get your mind right about it.

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

[ominous music] ♪ ♪ - I've heard lots of wardens say it takes anywhere from five to seven years to really be effective in your county.

[ominous music] This is my third hunting season here.

See, these guys, they, they're all really starting to get up.

So I'm sure they called the hunt.

I mean, it is 10:40am.

So, we'll go check them.

[ominous music] How's it going, guys?

- HUNTERS: How you doing?

- JIM: How are you, sir?

- HUNTER: Just fine, how are you?

[gun clicking] - JIM: Where you guys from?

- HUNTER: Michigan.

- JIM: Michigan?

- HUNTERS: Yea.

- JIM: How are you, sir?

- HUNTER: Good!

- JIM: Have you got your license with you?

- HUNTER: Yea.

- NARRATOR: Jim Daniels is a Texas Game Warden.

He covers both King and Knox Counties.

- HUNTER: Need my driver's license?

- JIM: No, we're good right now.

- NARRATOR: One warden.

- JIM: Let me take care of him and we'll get to y'all.

- NARRATOR: 1,700 square miles.

- JIM: You got your hunters ed card with you?

Looks good, bud.

Thank you.

What was your deal?

- HUNTER: Ah, no license.

- Do you have any information?

A driver's license?

Nothing on you?

- HUNTER: Nothing on me.

- JIM: Ok, Who's hunting right here, guys?

Are these all your empties?

This is the gun you hunted with today, right?

- HUNTER: Yes.

- Right now, I'm telling you, it looks like lead shot, ok?

- HUNTER: OK. - The law is when you're waterfowl hunting you can't even possess it.

We'll look at one real quick.

It might be good, man.

But I'll have to cut into it and we'll check it.

You all are good to go.

Yes, you are good to go.

I got your license?

No, no, you don't have one.

Ok, can't hold more than three shells, right?

[rifle cocks] There's one.

There's two.

There's three.

There's four.

- HUNTER: Uh-oh.

- Five.

Citation today for lead shot.

It's the lowest violation we have.

Well, I appreciate it.

Guys, you all be good.

Good luck with your hunt, all right?

We'll see y'all.

You know, I didn't know a soul up here, when I moved up here.

I mean, there was a whole bunch of unknowns, you know.

I knew I wanted to, ah, I knew I was ready to get to work.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ [computer chimes] - Come look at this picture.

I'm parked on the county road.

Those are geese getting up from that lake.

That's probably two miles wide, solid geese.

I'm telling you, I don't expect you to believe me.

What I'm telling you about the lake.

It's one of those things.

You're really going to have to see it to believe it.

[geese squawking] Can you hear them?

[geese squawking] I mean, how much space does one bird occupy on that water?

And you think, there's times you can't see water on this lake.

You can walk up to the fence.

[wild pigs squealing] Those are wild boar hogs.

They're going to get crazy.

See, what they'll do is smother one another.

Different individuals will set hog traps and they've collected them.

And it's a market, they'll hold them here and end up selling them to a buyer, to a hog buyer.

And it's one way the law allows us to eradicate these wild pigs.

[pig squeals] [metal clanging] [footsteps] - NARRATOR: But, not everyone obeys the law.

[shutter clicks] This wild pig... [shutter clicks] ...never made it to market.

[shutter clicks] - JIM: On solving the case like this, you have illegal dumping.

I mean, they can't, they can't throw out pigs on the side of the road.

See this rope?

I'm going to cut some of that rope with me cause each of these knots are tied the exact same.

I cut it where I can still preserve the knot.

And so if I happen to see someone who has this rope in the back of their truck and it has knots tied similar that way on something, it gives me a reason to ask more questions.

[car drives by] [bell] - RYAN PEACOCK: All right.

Thank you.

- JIM: Thank you very much.

Yes, ma'am.

- WAITRESS: You all do a good job.

- JIM: Someone's dumping pigs on the side of the road.

In the drainage ditch on the county road.

Have you ever filed it?

- RYAN: Illegal dumping?

- JIM: Yea.

- RYAN: Uh-huh.

- JIM: In regards to throwing pigs on the side of the road?

Class C?

- RYAN: Uh-huh.

- JIM: You get a good relation with your neighboring wardens cause you have to depend on them.

Is, cause, we don't have a partner.

I mean, they're your partner in a sense.

That was good, Ryan.

And they might be 120 miles away.

[soft acoustic music] - NARRATOR: Jim covers a lot of territory.

But the area is sparsely populated.

King and Knox Counties combined [dogs bark] have fewer than 4,000 people.

[door latch squeaks] Jim does not have many neighbors.

- JIM: Badge.

Sssssss.

Stay.

Stay.

- NARRATOR: Jim grew up in Lampasas, Texas hunting, fishing, playing football, and spending a lot of time outdoors.

But during his senior year in high school, tragedy entered Jim's young life.

- Well, it was just a cut and dry boat ride home.

That's all it was.

I mean, it was a boat ride as, as familiar as driving down your driveway.

As many times as you've driven down your own driveway, that's how familiar that boat ride was back to the boat ramp.

Finally, I tried to wave with my left arm at them, and that's when I realized I was injured cause I couldn't... - NARRATOR: This is Jim when he was 17, at a news conference after the boating accident on Lake Buchanan that took the life of his friend, Justin Roberts.

- The other boat basically launched up over, up and over this one here.

Jim Daniels was sitting behind the wheel, and Justin Roberts was sitting in the back seat up on top.

- NARRATOR: Justin was killed on impact.

Jim was thrown in the lake, unconscious for eight hours, surviving only because he was wearing his life jacket.

- I mean, it wasn't until three or four months later when I went out to visit Justin's grave and it's when it really hit me.

I mean, that's it.

I mean, 18 years old.

- NARRATOR: The driver of the other boat fled the scene, and the case went cold.

- Someone knows who did it.

The person who did it knows they did it.

And, the person who did it is having to live with it.

If they're still alive.

- NARRATOR: Then, one evening, eight years after the crash... - NEWS ANCHOR: A boat buried with a deadly secret for eight years is now out of the ground.

That boat is linked to a fatal boat collision.

- NEWS ANCHOR: They found it on Travis Marburger's property off County Road 272 in Bertram.

He was arrested Tuesday and charged with manslaughter in the case.

- JIM: Under these circumstances, you know, is, sure, people make mistakes.

- WORKERS: One, two, three.

- JIM: And it's not always a mistake that defines the type of person they are.

It's what they choose to do after the mistake that really defines who you are.

I think, you know, the accident, it added that passion about doing the job.

Let's check these guys.

[rifle cocks] It's nice to have met you.

Take care.

Holler if I can help you in any way.

There's a reason we put on our life jackets.

I wouldn't be here right now if I wouldn't have had that thing on.

You going to go to college?

- Ah, Texas.

- Texas?

I think some things happen because they happen.

And I think a lot of things happen and there's a reason.

And sometimes it might take a while for us to see what that reason is, to understand what it might be, or we might never understand.

No!

I'm a, Gig 'Em Aggies.

- Oh, you're an Ag?

I'm sorry to hear that.

- It's all right.

It's all right.

It's all right.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [guitar music] - WOMAN 1: They definitely taste better if you get them hot.

- WOMAN 2: Steaming.

- NARRATOR: On an early April morning, dozens of students and volunteers fuel up so they can burn the day away.

- So we're burning, the Northwest pasture, which is north and east of where we are right now.

- NARRATOR: It's a practice that's quite common today on the Seven Oaks Ranch, using controlled burns to restore wildlife habitat by bringing back grasses, forbs and much needed water.

[birds chirping] - We're on the Trans Pecos Ecoregion between the watersheds of the Pecos River and the Devils River, just off the Edwards Plateau.

It's an arid environment.

It's also the Eastern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert.

It's tough place to be, but it's a beautiful place to us, and because it's so remote.

[dramatic music] - NARRATOR: That is a younger version of Kelly and Jan. [laughing] - I've been on the ranch since I was in the first grade Del Rio.

That would be 72 years.

- WAYNE: When dad took over the ranch, it was still predominantly a traditional livestock operation with sheep and goats.

- My earliest memories of the ranch are driving around our old Dodge pickup with a stand in the back that barely held together, looking at wildlife all over the ranch, and it was a lot of fun.

- Coming out here and seeing, especially, you know, 25 years ago, when it was just really kind of dirt and rock.

It was sorta hard to understand the love that these men had for this land, but they did.

- Twenty years ago, my brother Wayne and I, just kind of, just looked around and it was just a mess, and we weren't biologists, but we could tell that the land had changed just in 20 years.

All these pastures turned into monocultures of cedar, and we just knew that wasn't healthy, that wasn't balanced.

And so from there we learned about prescribed fire.

[fire crackling] - NARRATOR: But convincing dad to set the place on fire, wasn't easy.

- I didn't jump up and down, but I got educated on it and talked to people that had done it.

And, and I was convinced that, that was the economical way to go.

- NARRATOR: Once the decision was made to change the landscape, the Walker boys got busy.

Philip recruited volunteers to help with the burning.

Wayne was the dollars and cents man and Caton handled the finances.

- When our father came down with cancer a few years ago, we came to the realization that there was more to running this ranch than we ever thought.

And it's like, wow, this is more than just a place to run around on and do our wildlife projects.

- They're three good men, they were raised right.

They're people of integrity and hard work.

So I'm very proud of them.

And certainly glad I have them.

[dramatic music] [piano music] - People off often ask, "Why did y'all name the ranch Seven Oaks?"

Well, here she is.

It's our wonderful family heirloom.

The seven oaks.

This tree is about 400 years old, it was here before the Texas Revolutions.

- When you come into the Seven Oaks Ranch, you can see who we're working with and you can tell what we're all about.

We're really proud of all the collaborative partnerships that we've created here with all the conservation groups, whether it be Monarch Watch or Borderlands Research Institute, Texas Parks and Wildlife, Quail Forever.

- NARRATOR: Today, the Seven Oaks is an example of what good management looks like, from rotational cattle grazing, installing several water tanks, troughs and retention ponds for wildlife and using prescribed fire.

[guitar music] - The boys love this ranch, they want to see it restored.

They want to see it be the postcard ranch for this part of Texas.

They know it can be.

- Woooooo!

[laughing] - JOYCE: And they're passing that legacy on to their children.

- Dad's got big smile on his face up in heaven right now I think.

[inspirational music] There are more ways than ever to help Texas Parks and Wildlife protect the outdoors through the Conservation License Plate program.

More than nine million dollars has been generated from the sale of these plates, funding wildlife research and big game restoration, protecting native species and their habitats, studying fish populations to improve Texas fishing... - GUIDE: How ya like that?!

...improving state parks through reforestation and other projects.

- VOLUNTEER: We got one!

- WOMAN: Yes, yes!

[honk, honk] Every plate on a car, truck, trailer or motorcycle means more money to support wild things and wild places in Texas.

- KEVIN GLASS: You hope for the best and train for the worst, and this is training for the worst right here.

Helicopter goes down, it's the best simulated training we can get.

Here today we're doing what's called HUET: Helicopter Underwater Egress Training.

It's learning how to get out of a helicopter in the event that we're working out of one and it goes down in the water.

- TRAINER: Brace for impact!

- ANDREW: Most helicopters will flip over, that's what they tell us, when they go into the water, and that's why we're doing some training in case it does happen in real life.

[water swooshes and splashes] - KEVIN G: It's pretty intense.

You concentrate.

So you just try to stay calm, remember: thing #1, thing #2.

It is definitely more mental than physical.

It is fun.

We'll have some fun discussions when we get done.

- The biggest thing is the panicking.

If you can get over the panicking and get your mind right about it, when you're in the real world and something like this happens, you need to know that you're going to get out of it.

And as long as you got that beat, there's no problem at all.

[dramatic music] - JASON DAVIS: Working with the NBL, which is the neutral buoyancy laboratory -- we're actually training in the same pool that astronauts are training in.

In the pool right now, there are astronauts training in the space station that's underwater.

Who would have ever thought that Texas Game Wardens would be training at NASA?

[machinery whirs] - KEVIN G: Oh gawd, this is awesome!

I mean, it's the best of the best, right?

And that's where you try to set yourself up for success.

And by setting muscle memory and by repeating it over and over, hopefully the outcome will be good when you need it.

[dramatic music] [piano music] - NARRATOR: Biologists Bill Reiner and Jim O'Donnell are looking for a tiny little bird.

- The nest is in the Juniper tree, and it's about six meters up the tree, and she's sitting on the nest right now.

[inspirational music] - NARRATOR: They are studying an endangered bird that nests only here in the Hill Country of Central Texas.

- This is pretty typical of their habitat, they like a more closed forest environment rather than an open mixed prairie woodland.

[inspirational music] - NARRATOR: This is the bird, it's a tiny warbler.

The Golden-cheeked Warbler.

And it's pretty special round these parts.

- Golden-cheeked Warblers are unique in the sense that they nest nowhere else in the world but in Central Texas.

There is no other bird in the world that you can say that about.

But Golden-cheeked Warblers, every one is a native Texan, because every one was born here.

- NARRATOR: Here in the rolling hills of Central Texas is the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve.

It's a 30,000 acre preserve right in the middle of a continually growing city of Austin.

[footsteps in leaves] And this preserve is where Bill and Jim monitor these rare warblers.

- I found the nest two days ago, it's a female Golden-cheeked warbler, the female does all the building.

She uses primarily the bark of Ash Juniper trees for the structure of the nest and she binds it together with sticking materials like spider webbing.

- NARRATOR: It turns out these unique birds only nest here, because they are dependent upon hill country Ash Juniper or commonly known as Cedar trees.

- The Golden-cheeked Warbler is only going to breed in this particular habitat.

They build their nests out of Ash Juniper bark, and they've evolved over the thousands of years, this relationship with the tree.

[Bobcat running] - NARRATOR: Herein lies the struggle.

Some consider native Texas Junipers a weed when they invade pastures and outcompete grasses and wildflowers.

And like the warbler, people need places to live as well.

- BILL: A lot of the forest areas that used to house Golden-cheeked Warblers are now housing human beings.

So much of the reason for the species being listed as endangered has been because of changes that we've made to the landscape.

- JIM: Got to find a good rock.

- NARRATOR: To get an idea on population numbers... - JIM: And this mist nest's six meters long.

- NARRATOR: The duo teams up to catch some.

- It's almost invisible, we've actually caught people who aren't paying close attention and walking close to the net.

We try to find habitat where we have a narrow opening, and which we can have the birds come down to a low perch.

[Golden-cheeked Warbler calls] - It's where they are gonna want to cross back and forth.

- He's moving around a lot.

- JIM: We're going to entice him down with a song.

- He's trying very hard to figure out where this rival is.

Ah, close!

[bird call] - BILL: He sounds agitated now.

Got him!

It's always important to see which side he came in on.

Boy you managed to get your head twisted in there pretty good, didn't ya buddy!

All right, let's put the bands on.

[bird call] - BILL: His right leg has an orange band over a silver band.

- JIM: One of the things that banding helps us with is longevity studies.

- BILL: So it's mauve over dark green, orange over silver.

- And what we're finding is some of the older growth habitat, closed canopy habitat seems some of the favorite habitat for these guys.

- BILL: You're a feisty little critter!

It's really good to see them snap because that means that he's very alert, he's still in good shape.

And then just let him fly off.

Whooosh!

- We're going to be checking on this Golden-cheeked nest, it's been about seven days since we've been here.

So we're gonna check to make sure that the nest is still active.

[inspirational music] The female's coming in, and she's got a caterpillar.

Caterpillars are wonderful protein sources this time of year.

- NARRATOR: This mom's been busy with three new chicks that are seven days old.

- The male's coming in now, he's been banded; he was banded two years ago.

- NARRATOR: The future of the Golden-cheeked Warbler is dependent on prime nesting habitat.

[inspirational music] - Preservation of these Hill Country Cedar Forests is the key, before these warblers disappear altogether.

- One of the great things about the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve is, it's now coming back, we have trees here that are over 100 years old, were setting the stage here for the return of those old growth forests.

- The Golden-cheeked Warbler is continuing to face pressures from urban growth, from changes that we are doing to its habitat and to the planet.

We hope with the establishment of the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve, putting this land in some protection, that we can help them to survive into the future.

[inspirational music] [birds sing, water trickling] [birds sing, water trickling] [birds sing, water trickling] [birds sing, water trickling] [birds sing, water trickling] [birds sing, water trickling] [birds sing, water trickling] [birds sing, water trickling] [birds sing, water trickling] [birds sing, water trickling] [birds sing, water trickling] [birds sing, water trickling] 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.