Texas Showcases Leadership in Conservation at National Joint Meeting: National Association of State Conservation Agencies and National Watershed Coalition Convene in Fort Worth to Advance Soil, Water, and Watershed Stewardship

Feral hogs are causing serious problems in Texas national parks, damaging ecosystems, cultural sites and visitor experiences while proving difficult to control due to their high reproductive rates. They are present in parks across the state, including Big Thicket National Preserve, Big Bend National Park and Padre Island National Seashore. To address the issue, researchers at Texas A&M University have developed the first nationwide framework to help the National Park Service (NPS) manage feral hog populations.

Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the next milestone in the fight against New World screwworm (NWS) – the opening of a sterile fly dispersal facility in Tampico, Mexico. The Tampico facility will allow USDA to disperse sterile flies aerially across northeastern Mexico, including in Nuevo Leon. “The opening of the Tampico sterile fly dispersal facility is another incredibly important tool in our arsenal to stop the spread of screwworm.

The wide-open vistas of the Texas High Plains weren’t always cotton fields and center-pivots, they were once carpeted in shortgrass prairie, a hardy mix of native grasses. Today, re-establishing and managing those native grass species is one of the most practical, climate-smart investments a landowner or producer can make. Livestock and wildlife species, ecosystem processes, and overall plant community function depends on our native grasses for a variety of reasons.