ALPINE – About 40 desert bighorn sheep will be captured at Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area using a helicopter and moved by trailer to Big Bend Ranch State Park the week of Dec. 20. It’s the latest phase of a multi-partner wildlife restoration project begun in 1954, and the first bighorn reintroduction at a Texas state park.
ATHENS—Bobbie Gayle of Millersview joined a very exclusive club December 15 when she caught Toyota ShareLunker 505 from O.H. Ivie Reservoir.
JASPER – Four new East Texas paddling trails in and around Martin Dies Jr. State Park will be dedicated at 10 a.m., Thursday, Dec. 16 to mark the latest entrants into the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department’s Texas Paddling Trails program that now includes 25 waterway trails.
TYLER — The East Texas Woods and Waters Foundation (ETWWF) and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) will host two special fishing events in January 2010. Two thousand rainbow trout will be stocked into The Nature Center pond to provide a free fishing opportunity for area youth and their adult fishing mentors. Event dates are January 8 and 15, 2011, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., rain or shine.
DALLAS — Since 2006, Dallas Safari Club (DSC) has granted more than $750,000 in funding for wildlife and habitat conservation, youth and public education, and hunter advocacy programs within the state of Texas.
AUSTIN – Since 1995 when Texas’ first spring eastern turkey hunting season was opened in Red River County, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has maintained a conservative approach — a 30-day season, mandatory check stations, one gobbler bag limit — to give the birds ample opportunity to establish themselves in new haunts. As turkey numbers have increased and flocks expand into new areas, the agency has steadily increased hunting opportunity by opening a spring season in 43 East Texas counties.
PORT ARTHUR – Design work is underway to redevelop Sea Rim State Park whose facilities were damaged first by Hurricane Rita, rebuilt and again destroyed in September 2008 by Hurricane Ike before the park could reopen.
WICHITA FALLS — The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) district fisheries office in Wichita Falls recently completed crappie surveys on Lakes Buffalo Creek, Lost Creek, Possum Kingdom, Wichita and Petrolia. “Overall, the news is good for anglers of these lakes,” said TPWD’s Robert Mauk.
BURNET – Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game wardens have executed an evidentiary search warrant at a rural residence in Burnet County in connection with the department’s ongoing investigation into the 2002 death of Justin Wayne Roberts, who died in a boat crash on Lake Buchanan that injured two others.
AUSTIN— If you find yourself fresh out of holiday gift ideas for your camping-enthusiast cousins or that friend who would rather spend his or her spare time fishing on the lake and exploring state parks, TPWD suggests you shop the outdoors.