Nature Notes

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Nature Notes episodes

February 20, 2020 Desert “Unicorns”: The White Lizards of the Salt Basin Dunes
photograph by Drew Dittmer
In the West Texas countryside on a summer day, you're apt to glimpse one racing across the ground, or basking in the sun. If you're a “desert rat” yourself, you're likely to identify with the small creature's evident love of the heat.
The lesser earless lizard is a common inhabitant of our region – from the Permian Basin to the desert flats. A humble animal – usually brown, less than 5 inches long. But while it may be “ordinary,” it's also capable of big surprises.
In 2016, biologist Drew Dittmer was hiking the sparkling dunes of the Salt Basin, in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, when he came upon an earless lizard markedly unlike its peers... Hosted by for KRTS
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February 06, 2020 The Rio Grande Beaver: A Water-Lover at Home in West Texas
There is nothing more life-giving than flowing water in a land of little rain. And the rivers of desert West Texas are a lifeline not only for humankind, but for diverse wildlife. The Rio Grande and its tributaries sustain creatures found nowhere else on Earth – from endangered mussels to dozens of native fish species.
And beaver. The Rio Grande beaver is uniquely adapted to its this region. Several years ago, scientists surveyed beaver in Big Bend. They found that these water-loving mammals are holding their own.
Beaver are a perennial favorite among children, and it's easy to see why they capture the imagination. In creatures that cut down trees, and live in family units in “lo... Hosted by for KRTS
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January 30, 2020 Davis Mountains Sightings Bring Home a Wild Reality: West Texas is Once Again Bear Country
video by Edna Queen, taken at her home in the Davis Mountains in May 2019.
There's nothing like the presence of an apex predator – an animal that could make a meal of you – to focus the attention. Davis Mountains residents had that experience in 2018 and 2019, when, for several months, black bear sightings became a regular occurrence.
It brings home a wild West Texas reality. Black bears had been exterminated here by the 1960s. Now, this is once again bear country.
Gary Freeman has lived in the sky-island woodlands of the Davis Mountains Resort since 2006.
“In 2016, I first saw two black bears on our property,” Freeman said. “In 2017-2018, there were no sighting of ... Hosted by for KRTS
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January 23, 2020 At Muleshoe Refuge, Sandhill Cranes Are the Sound of a Prairie Sanctuary
Jamie Allen, assistant manager of Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, takes in the view of White Lake, which has been a sanctuary for a migrating and wintering waterfowl for millenia.
Their cries are one of North America's most stirring sounds – a potent reminder of enduring wildness. A half million sandhill cranes migrate via West Texas each year, some from as far as Siberia. They're lesser sandhill cranes, but “lesser” is relative: they're 4-feet-high at the shoulder, with wingspans of up to 8 feet.
Fifteen percent winter at one place – near the geographic center of the Llano Estacado. Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge is Texas' oldest wildlife refuge. Created by President Fr... Hosted by for KRTS
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January 16, 2020 Discovering an Ancient West Texas Treasure at Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument
Immense, baffling in their extent, the Llano Estacado plains of West Texas are like a sea. Immersed in that oceanic quality, a traveler here encounters variations in the landscape with particular wonder.
Like Caprock and Palo Duro canyons, the Canadian River Valley is such a place. Here, north of Amarillo, the Llano Estacado breaks into mesas and canyons – deep red: the vitals of the Texas earth exposed.
In these breaks, the region's first people found a unique resource – one that would be quarried, and traded, for millennia. Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument tells that story.
Joe Mihm leads tours at Alibates. He's a Panhandle “lifer” – “with little chance of pa... Hosted by for KRTS
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January 09, 2020 Looking at How Climate Change Will Transform the West Texas Landscape
In broad strokes, the impacts of climate change on West Texas are known. Average temperatures will rise at least 4 degrees by 2050 – and, if global emissions continue apace, 8 degrees by the end of the century. Annual rainfall will likely decline, and droughts become more frequent and intense.
The effects on animals and plants, on the landscape itself, are certain to be profound. But predicting those effects is no simple matter.
On Jan. 18, at Sul Ross State University's Espino Conference Center, a coalition of conservation groups hosts a conference on the implications of climate change for West Texas. Texas Tech botanist Dylan Schwilk will be a featured speaker. His work highligh... Hosted by for KRTS
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January 02, 2020 At Jan. 18 Conference, State Climatologist Will Lay Out West Texas’ Climate Future
The central reality of climate change – that gases from the burning of fossil fuels are creating a “greenhouse effect,” warming the planet – has been known for decades. It's been 40 years since the first World Climate Conference. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was formed in 1988, the same year NASA scientist James Hansen told Congress “the greenhouse effect is already happening now.”
Though the world hasn't changed course – on the contrary, annual global CO2 emissions have nearly doubled since 1979 – the fact of climate change now seems to have penetrated public consciousness. It remains politically charged in the U.S., but major institutions – from the ... Hosted by for KRTS
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December 12, 2019 At Big Bend Park, A New Plan to Fight Exotic Wildlife
Science confirms what visitors intuit: Big Bend National Park is a singular place. At 1,200 square miles, it's the largest protected Chihuahuan Desert landscape in the U.S. The diversity of desert life it contains is unparalleled. It's not only a place of recreation – the park exists to preserve ecosystems.
That work falls to the park service, and it's not always simple. “Exotic” or non-native species are among the the starkest of challenges.
In 2018, the park adopted new plans for addressing “exotics.” They include ambitious efforts to eradicate or reduce two non-native mammals – aoudad, or Barbary sheep, and feral hogs.
Watching a herd of aoudad stream effortlessly u... Hosted by for KRTS
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December 05, 2019 Fighting Non-Native Plants in Big Bend National Park
Sweeping prairies, mountain meadows, river canyons – there are places in rural West Texas that feel timeless. And indeed, such places often retain much of their primordial character. Yet no place, however remote, is untouched by the environmental changes humans have wrought in the last century and a half.
One profound change has been the spread of non-native plants – which have displaced or disrupted native plant communities, and the wildlife that relies on them.
Protected lands aren't exempt. At Big Bend National Park, officials are charged with preserving native flora and fauna. In 2018, the park adopted a new plan for managing non-native or “exotic” plants.
In Big Bend,... Hosted by for KRTS
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November 07, 2019 Sloth Dung: Hints of the Ice Age Past Dropped in a West Texas Cave
Limestone mesas dominate the foreground, the pale strata angling skyward above what, even by West Texas standards, is a rough dirt road. Above the mesas, higher still, is the Sierra Vieja, red mountains, molten in appearance, though the volcanic eruptions that laid them ended 30 million years ago.
Here, on the Pinto Canyon Ranch in Presidio County, researchers are traveling by all-terrain vehicle to Spirit Eye Cave. Collectors and looters dug the cave for a century. But what remains – in foodstuffs and fibers, in pot shards and tools – is broadening our understanding of Big Bend prehistory.
But cultural artifacts aren't the purpose of this outing. Archeologist Bryon Schroeder, of ... Hosted by for KRTS
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