Latest / Ducks Unlimited Podcast / Texas Coast Wetlands: Habitat, Migration & Conservation in Action (Ep 787)

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Texas Coast Wetlands: Habitat, Migration & Conservation in Action (Ep 787) · Ducks Unlimited Podcast

• 0:00
  VO: You're tuned in to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. Conserving wetlands, restoring habitat, and working to fill the skies with waterfowl today, tomorrow, and forever. From field tested hunting insights to the biggest conservation wins across North America, This is your front row seat to wetlands conservation in action. The DU Podcast is proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're wrapping up a hunt with your best friend or kicking back with your crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
• 0:39
  Mike Brasher: Everybody, welcome back. I am your host on today's episode, doctor Mike Brasher, and we're gonna be talking about wetland management on the Texas Coast. We're gonna be talking about wetland conservation, restoration, enhancement programs that we have going on down there. We're also gonna be talking a little bit of waterfowl ecology, migration, a whole bunch of topics that we're gonna cover. And to help me with that is Taylor Absher, a regional biologist for Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.
• 1:09
  Taylor, welcome to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast.
• 1:11
  Taylor Abshire: Thanks, Mike. I appreciate it. Happy to be here today.
• 1:14
  Mike Brasher: I know we've talked about one of the programs that are prominent down there in Texas before, the Texas Prairie Wetlands Project, and we'll do so again. Were you a guest on that episode? Do you recall, or was that with your your boss, Doctor. Todd Marandino?
• 1:28
  Taylor Abshire: Yep, that was with Doctor. Todd Marandino several years back.
• 1:31
  Mike Brasher: That's a very well known project, a program for folks in the state of Texas, really along the Gulf Coast there. It's been very successful through the years, and I know we'll touch on it as we go forward. It's great to have you here leading this conversation. Say hey to your boss there, Doctor. Todd Marandino, whenever you see him.
• 1:51
  It's been a while since I ran into him. I think a lot of people have nicknames for him. Tex is one of those. Is that right? You heard heard him called that?
• 1:58
  Taylor Abshire: Oh, yeah. Yes.
• 2:00
  Mike Brasher: You probably heard him called quite a few things too.
• 2:03
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. Doctor. T's the common one around here.
• 2:06
  Mike Brasher: Doctor. T, okay. Not Mr. T, he's a doctor. All right.
• 2:10
  Well, Taylor, we want to get you introduced to our audience. Tell our folks about yourself, where you're from, how long you've been with DU, and a little bit about what you're doing there.
• 2:17
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah, for sure. So I'm Taylor Aksher, regional biologist with DU, as you said. I've been with Ducks Unlimited ten years this week, which is pretty exciting. Time goes by really quick, and there's no doubt about that, working with Ducks Unlimited. So lots of really cool restoration projects along the way.
• 2:35
  So when I started with DU, I managed the Texas Prairie Wetlands project here on the Texas Gulf Coast and created another habitat management program focused on working with private landowners and late successional wetland management. About four years ago, I moved into a public lands role across Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, working with our state federal partners as well as some other nonprofit organizations, really trying to assist them in receiving grant funding as well as implementing restoration projects on the properties that they own.
• 3:13
  Mike Brasher: Thank you for that, Taylor. One of the things I wanted to sort of ask you a little bit here, I know from experience down there along the Gulf Coast, have different at one time, anyway, you had two staff that were working on delivery of these important programs. One focused on public land projects, and you said you just kinda moved into that role, but I also know that in the past you had a separate person working on private land projects, and so are you still doing that as well?
• 3:42
  Taylor Abshire: At the moment, yes. We currently have a vacancy here in our Texas field office, and so I have picked up the private lands role on top of my day to day duties of managing public land projects.
• 3:55
  Mike Brasher: One of the reasons why we have traditionally had separate biologists doing that work is just there's so much to do, and some of the funding mechanisms may differ a little bit between how we're delivering on public land versus private land. There's a lot of overlap, but there's some, I think more than any other reason, it's just because there's a lot
• 4:17
  Taylor Abshire: of work to do, right? Absolutely. A lot of our partners are coming to us day in and day out looking for us to provide funding, engineering and design, some biological assistance, and then with even with having the vacancy in our private lands role for just over a year, we still have landowners that are very interested in working with us through our private lands program, and this year, we'll have about 35 completed Texas Prairie Wetlands projects, as well as an additional 30 habitat restoration projects, which are a little bit different, which we'll talk about here in a little bit. So 65, roughly, private land projects here on the Gulf Coast that we've said grace over for the last twelve months.
• 5:06
  Mike Brasher: That's awesome. Doing good work for waterfowl habitat and the ducks and geese that use it. I wanna talk about the ducks and geese right now. Most of the geese have or pretty much all of the geese, I'm assuming, have left the Texas Coast by this time of year, but you and I were talking the other day as we prepared for this episode, and you were telling me that there are still some ducks along the Texas coast. Here we are mid migrant ducks.
• 5:29
  Here we are May 15, and you still have some blue winged teal that are working their way through. So give people an idea of of kind of what that looks like and how how long this migration through the Texas Coast is sort of stretched out?
• 5:43
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah, certainly. So down here on the coast, we have a pretty long migration period where we start seeing waterfowl showing up in mid to early August, specifically blue winged teal that are coming off of the breeding ground early and working their way south to Mexico. We have those birds starting to show up in August, and they'll linger through mid May. I was out on the landscape, and we've had a little bit of rain down here on the coast, and there's still a handful of blue winged teal who are use utilizing the Gulf Coast and utilizing some of these wetlands that are out here on the landscape. You'll see an occasional northern shoveler and a handful of other species out there.
• 6:23
  But, yeah, there are certainly some stragglers that are hanging around working their way back north.
• 6:28
  Mike Brasher: And so what does that mean in terms of what are the implications of that for any of the conservation work that we do or the, like, if you're a if you're a wetland manager or a private landowner or public land manager down there, how does that extended migration gonna factor into the way we think about about managing those wetlands? Because I also know we have breeding waterfowl down there, particularly mottled ducks. So how does all that play into the mindset of the people that are managing those wetlands?
• 6:59
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. So when we're working with landowners on management, we try to create a diversity in habitat to where you're rotating your management practices, producing moist soil vegetation for birds that are arriving early, those carbohydrates, those seeded plants, and then managing water depth so that you can convert that over to submerged aquatic vegetation later in the season, and then ultimately holding that water on the landscape as late as possible. Hopefully mother nature gives us some decent rain to keep that water on the landscape, but then also working on alternating your drawdowns. And so not drawing all your water off of the landscape at the same time, but managing some of that water drawdown over an additional three to four months after hunting season is over to make sure you do provide migration habitat for late migrants and birds coming back through between January, end of January, and mid to late May.
• 8:01
  Mike Brasher: Are landowners down there cooperating like, what percentage of the folks that we work with would want to and maybe this is a programmatic question, but through the lens of the wetland managers, I'm quite certain that the vast majority of people are gonna be managing their wetlands to provide food resources and habitat resources during that migration and winter period, and but I know there are some that get really excited about supporting those local breeding model ducks. What's the percentage of landowners or projects or however you want to view it of those that are primarily migration and winter habitat versus those that are trying to provide actively, intentionally providing that breeding habitat for model ducks?
• 8:52
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. There's certainly some landowners on the Gulf Coast who are actively managing for model duck breeding habitat and broodering habitat. I would say that that number is probably pretty low, somewhere in the 10 to 20% range, just because a lot of these groups are managing from August till mid March, April timeframe for those carbohydrates, and then they're drawing that water down to grow the second round of forage for the next hunting season. So it's probably not as high as we would like it to be, and we've certainly gone through a few iterations of the Texas Prey Wetlands Project to incentivize or work with landowners to manage late season water for model ducks, and those projects have been productive. We've worked with the Gulf Coast joint venture monitoring some late season water, early summer water, and there is habitat out there through the Texas Prairie Wetlands project, but it's not as abundant as it has been for your wintering and migratory waterfowl.
• 9:59
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. I remember that we did some sort of remote sensing analysis looking at the availability of water on the landscape immediately prior to the close of the waterfowl hunting season, and then, like, within the first two or three weeks after the hunting season, and we saw a pretty dramatic drop off in the amount of water that's out there, and that's a signal that hunters are pulling aboard on their managed wetlands pretty soon after the hunting season is over. And from the standpoint of model ducks and the type of resources and habitat that they need, we would love and even spring migrants, as you were talking about, we would love to see landowners holding that water a little bit longer and to continue to provide those those diverse resources, their habitat for a longer period of time. It's it's I think it's and we've talked about this with some of the other folks in recent episodes. Not only are you supporting the ducks, breeding model ducks in the case of the the coastal areas, the Gulf Coast, but those spring migrant ducks that are coming back through or trying to prepare for that northward migration, but you also support a whole host of other wetland dependent birds, which creates a really unique experience to know that you're supporting them, and you get to see all their fun antics as they're out there in their bright breeding plumage.
• 11:19
  And so, yeah, to your point, Taylor, we do have some efforts it's good to hear that we have some efforts that are trying to actively incentivize that extended water, and for those wetland managers that are that are listening to this, again, we encourage you to consider that. Even if you can extend that water for a week or two weeks, that's a good thing, and if you can if you've got enough units to kinda rotate it from year to year so that you can hold water later into February or even March or April or, as as Taylor said, we have birds still migrating back through here in mid May, then then that's a great thing to do, and and your contribution to waterfowl population can extend much longer, and a lot of our biologists and other biologists from other agencies are are out there and would be would love to help you think through how to how to go about that. Speaking of of that, Taylor, how much interaction do you have with these landowners on the management side of things? I know we work with them on restoration projects, enhancement projects, things of that nature, but when it comes to the decisions that they're making, how they're managing their wetlands, how many opportunities do you get to interact with them?
• 12:33
  Like, how much of your job falls into that category?
• 12:37
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah, So I can't take as much credit for it now as I did back in 2017, 2018 when we started the Texas Coastal Wetlands Program, which has a little bit of a confusing nomenclature because it's similar to the Texas Cray Wetlands Project. But we did create this new program, the Texas Coastal Wetlands Project, to work with landowners specifically on the habitat management of their property, and we provide a $20 cost incentive payment to implement management practices for disking, roller chopping, herbicide treatments. That program has been instrumental in educating landowners on the habitat management, the importance of providing the appropriate food sources on the landscape, timing of flooding, and really just getting to ride around, visit with these individuals and landowners on what interests them and how what makes them excited about water And so building that little bit of a relationship with them and talking through the management practices has been key to providing substantial additional habitat on the landscape. And there's been multiple landowners who have called at the end of the season and said, oh, that management practice worked, we've seen more birds on our property than what we've seen in the last five years, and a lot of it comes down to providing the appropriate water depths at the right time with the correct food sources or carbohydrates that those birds are looking for.
• 14:11
  And so just spending a little bit of time with these landowners has made a significant impact in in their success as well as the availability of food for these birds while they're wintering and utilizing this landscape.
• 14:26
  Mike Brasher: One of the things that I want you to help people understand here is the source of funding for this project, for that program, because I know a lot of people will may especially if they're already a critic of Ducks Unlimited, which there are some of those out there, they may be thinking, yeah, you're taking the money from my money from our grassroots fundraising event and giving it to private landowners, but that's not the case in this situation where we're well, tell us who where the funding is coming from for the work that you're talking about.
• 14:57
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. So the funding for this program is coming from the Doctor. Edward Sallie Futch Charitable Foundation, as well as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. And so putting these two funding sources together, we've built a pretty good bucket of funding to work with these landowners on the coast, and we're, at the moment, impacting about 3,000 acres of managed habitat, providing those critical resources on the landscape. Using both public and NGO funding has been beneficial or crucial to the success of this program.
• 15:34
  It is very fast acting. We open the program in May. We implement management practices between July and October, and we close out projects in February. So in about nine months, we've worked with the landowner, implemented management practices, and closed out projects, kind of in that really fast time period, but a lot of the time when we're working in late successional wetlands that are grown up in cattail or ceni beans, these restoration practices or management practices will extend for a year or two down the road. And so it's not just, it is a one time investment, but it benefits the landscape and the resources for a year or two down the road.
• 16:18
  And so it's really educating these landowners and even that minimal incentive payment of $20 an acre, I mean, that's usually enough to incentivize on landowners to go out, implement those practices. They see the benefit, and through that education, they go and replicate that year over year. And so it's kind of building that education, building that network of landowners to create this out on the landscape.
• 16:44
  Mike Brasher: Have you seen a lot of growth in the interest in that program? You said that you've got people that tell you about what they observed, the good outcomes that they got from the practice that was implemented. Is there a backlog, or are you what is any of that looking like in terms of the interest in the program?
• 17:06
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. So we were certainly looking for new applications to come in, new landowners to participate with and work with in the program. This past year, we had about 35 applications. A handful of them fell out just because they didn't qualify, or they were in agricultural practices, which doesn't align with this specific program. And so we still provided the technical assistance.
• 17:31
  We met with the landowners and helped to provide the education of importance of management and how they could implement various management practices on their property, but they may have not qualified for the reimbursement piece. And so it does kind of build a portfolio of landowners to work with and, again, provide that education on the landscape.
• 17:54
  Mike Brasher: You mentioned something the other day when we were talking that I thought was interesting, and I don't I don't know if you've said it already here, but the payment that comes along with this is about $20 an acre to help cover the cost of to cover a portion of the cost of their of of the implementation, the the soil manipulation or water that that that would be would be happening there, or I should say vegetation manipulation that would be happening. But, also, you briefly referenced that there are some areas, like agricultural areas in active production or having a history of production, can't qualify for the program. Explain that, and and why is that?
• 18:36
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. So the the whole goal of this program is to focus on late successional wetland habitat. And so sites that are fallow have been out of agricultural practice for five years or more. Our goal is to really focus on that true native natural habitat, even projects that have expired from the Texas Prairie Wetlands Project, to go in and assist those landowners with the more intensive management of the vegetation that can be a little bit more cumbersome or more expensive to treat. Cattail can be fairly aggressive and expensive to take care of.
• 19:17
  Sometimes you can implement management practices and have an adverse response where you have a variety of vegetation that propagates or comes up and need to do a little additional management. I mean, we're working with mother nature in these wetland sites, and so soil temperature, precipitation, soil moisture kind of all play a role in the vegetative response that we see. And so trying to work with the landowners on that timing is important, but that incentive payment is key to helping offset those costs. And the goal of the program is not to incentivize management that would otherwise be done for agricultural practices.
• 20:06
  Mike Brasher: And this type of arrangement where we have strict criteria for enrollment in a program is not unique is not unique to this particular program. It's not unique to Ducks Unlimited, NRCS, and a lot of the programs that they have fall into that same category. You know, it's not like just anyone can go apply. You have to meet certain criteria. Well, anyone can go apply, I should say, but there are certain criteria that have to be met before you are considered eligible to participate in these in these programs.
• 20:39
  And there's a lot of reasons for establishing those criteria depending on the the type of things that we're hoping to accomplish, and you've outlined those for this Texas coastal wetlands project, and I think that's pretty cool how we're we're trying to narrow in on a particular type of of wetland out there, and and it may not be as productive right now, and we're trying to sort of rejuvenate it and provide a bit of of an incentive for getting landowners to do that, and then the idea being that if they see the positive results from that, then they'll say, hey, you know what? That was worth it. I'm going to do that myself. And then maybe they'll come back to you and ask for assistance or technical assistance, but then they would cover the cost of it going forward on their own because they've seen what a great benefit it provides. That's kind of the thinking that goes into some of these incentivized payments, and these incentives, it's just to provide that additional nudge to do something that we are quite confident will generate a valuable outcome, and when they see that, hey, then they realize that it's worth them doing on their own, and they'll continue to do that, and maybe do that on a larger portion of the landscape in some other areas.
• 21:49
  And so that's pretty cool that you've got that. I wanna clarify also, or have you clarify, which counties this applies to, because I don't want you getting flooded with calls from all over Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma. This is a coastal Texas project or program. What are those counties just sort of generally stated?
• 22:08
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. So the counties range from Orange County on the Louisiana border, hug the coast fairly tightly. We go into Liberty County, Harris County, which is kind of the Houston area. We don't deliver in that specific area, but kinda loops around and then stays South of I 10 down to Lavaca County, and then down to about the Corpus Christi area, Nuestus County is the, I think, 18 counties that the program is active in.
• 22:36
  Mike Brasher: Taylor, I appreciate you sharing with us about that new program. That was something that I was not aware of, and I was excited to hear it. We are going to take a break right now. We're going to come back. I want to I want to talk with you a little bit about the Texas Prairie Wetlands project, and then we will talk about a few other things, habitat management that may be underway by private landowners or wetland managers or or public land managers there in your area this time of year, and then what that kinda what things are looking like, weather wise, habitat wise, and and what you may be anticipating between now and when the birds arrive, which is, not too far away of when you actually, start counting months.
• 23:19
  So stay with us, folks. We'll be right back.
• 23:28
  VO: Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey after these messages.
• 23:43
  Mike Brasher: Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I am here with Taylor Abshire, regional biologist for Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, and we're discussing wetland management, wetland programs along the Texas Coast. One of the most and perhaps the longest standing private land conservation program, maybe in all of Ducks Unlimited at this point, is the Texas Prairie Wetlands Project. We as we introduced early on, we spoke at length with doctor Todd Marandino about that program program a number of years ago.
• 24:17
  It's worth revisiting to get an update on that. The money for that program comes from a variety of sources, the North American Wetlands Conservation Act that that we talk a lot about and spend a lot of emphasis on from a policy standpoint as well as a delivery standpoint is crucial, is a crucial funding source for that program. We we are able to tap into those federal dollars, though, because private landowners contribute to this, because we get funding from other partners, whether it be state partners, other philanthropic partners. All of that money comes together to support these numerous projects that fall under the banner of the Texas Prairie Wetlands Project. And so, Taylor, give us an update on that project or that program.
• 25:07
  How many acres are we standing at now? What are the counties where it covers? What are some of the highlights?
• 25:12
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. Great introduction to the Texas Prairie Wetlands Project. This is the program that I started with Ducks Unlimited. When I started with Ducks Unlimited, this is what I started with, was the Texas Prairie Wetlands Project, and where I cut my teeth and learned the ins and outs of working with engineers and and restoration projects. And so it's certainly something that's near and dear to my heart.
• 25:37
  And it started in 1991. We're in our thirty fifth year of habitat delivery, and I would call this more of our brick and mortar restoration program. We're really working with landowners on constructing levees, water control structures, implementing that habitat on the landscape, or implementing the infrastructure associated with managing these habitats. And so this past year, we delivered our one thousandth agreement with a private landowner, which is really exciting. We've constructed over 1,800 individual wetland units across the Texas Gulf Coast and delivered just over 95,000 acres of habitat.
• 26:24
  This is a very critical program. Like I said, it started in 1991 with the vision of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and Ducks Unlimited, as well as the NRCS, US Fish and Wildlife Service, but really based on the science that was coming out of the Gulf Coast joint venture of the Texas Coast needing to provide roosting habitat, wintering habitat, as well as the foraging resources here on the coast. So the science was saying that there's a significant deficit of foraging opportunities for waterfowl, and so we really started diving into this Texas Prairie wetlands project, and there's been about eight biologists that have worked with Ducks Unlimited that have managed and overseen this program over the last thirty five years. A lot of really cool landowners and partners that we've worked with along the way. You mentioned one of the funding sources is being NAACA, or the North American Wetland Conservation Act, but there's also the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and US Fish and Wildlife Service Partners program both provide a significant income to or funding into this program, as well as multiple nonprofits and corporate organizations.
• 27:40
  H E B and Tractor Supply were both one. And then also the Doctor. Edward and Sally Futch Charitable Foundation has been instrumental in funding this program year over year and supporting the the brick and mortar construction of these projects on private lands. Yeah. It's it's very cool.
• 28:01
  Lots of habitats being created since this is infrastructure based. The levees and water control structures are lasting twenty five plus years out on the landscape. So once you build it, it's really up to mother nature to provide the water and and the resources, but also working with the landowners on the habitat management piece is important as well.
• 28:23
  Mike Brasher: When we look across the migration and wintering areas, there are few places, few regions where this type of work is more important than than the Texas Gulf Coast because if you've driven along I 10 in in in Texas, Coastal Texas, anytime recently, you will know that it takes you about an hour or an hour and a half to get across the megalopolis that is Houston and all of its surrounding areas, and and and Houston is expanding westward into some of that historical rice prairie. Much of that is becoming converted to sort of industrial or commercial type of land uses, which provides absolutely zero waterfowl habitat, and so we've seen a tremendous loss in waterfowl habitat across that region, and this project is super important for incentivizing the enhancement of the areas that remain. We've also seen, you know, rice production, a decline in coastal marshes as a result of some of the challenges that are being faced there with regard to sort of coastal erosion, relative sea level rise, and a lot of those things that are also occurring and affecting those wetlands, and so this has been a really fun program to watch, to watch its evolution, to watch how it has just sort of persisted, and how just year after year I know your boss, Todd, would always get kind of frustrated, and he's like, man, it just doesn't feel like we're doing enough, which the truth is we're not doing we're not doing enough.
• 30:05
  We want to do more. We need to do more because the threats facing those habitats there along the Texas Coast are immense. And Todd would say, man, what do we do? What do we have to do? And it just doesn't feel like we're adding enough acres.
• 30:20
  When you look at this over a longer period of time, you cited there in your intro to this project, 95,000 acres have been impacted through this project or this program alone. That is significant, and it's also really neat to look at some of the remote sensing work that we've done or that was done in the Gulf Coast joint venture that found during those dry years, these projects are the ones that are of outsized importance because they tend to be they tend to make up a larger percentage of the available habitat for waterfowl during those years, and so they're functioning the way we want them to. We would always love to do more, but it's this type of program that has been really foundational to our success on private lands. And as you said, Taylor, it's been one of the things that you've taken a lot of pride in, and I'm sure you enjoyed, but I suspect part of that is because of the people that you got to work with, the landowners. What is that like?
• 31:21
  You know, as a person who does get out in the field, how much enjoyment do you get interacting with people that have that shared passion for wetlands and waterfowl and that want to work with us?
• 31:33
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. It's really exciting getting to go meet a landowner for the first time or a lessee that is using somebody else's property for waterfowl management and enhancement. And so you really get to see kind of the behind the scenes, the passion, the interest, the excitement that these individuals have for wetland conservation, waterfowl management, habitat management, and then at the end of the day, being able to utilize the resource for more of a consumptive use, taking their grandkids and children out, getting to watch the sunrise over over the wetlands that they've been able to produce the food in and be able to watch kind of the fruit of their labor come in the form of waterfowl. So it's really exciting to see that interest and passion, and it's something that I think often gets overlooked or kind of buried at times just because it's a big world, there's a lot of news going on, and kind of getting to just meet with these folks one on one right around their property in a side by side and really just kind of get to visit with folks. It's a lot of fun.
• 32:43
  I've really enjoyed it. Tons of passion out there on the landscape, and I think we certainly need to celebrate that passion a little bit more.
• 32:50
  Mike Brasher: With regard to the work that those landowners are doing, what type of habitat management is prominent this time of year? I said it's mid it's mid May. What are they starting to think about? What are you seeing? What do the next few months hold for those people that are looking to set the table for the fall and winter for for these birds whenever they come back?
• 33:10
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. So at the moment, we have a lot of landowners that are working on drying out or allowing for their wetlands to become dry, let those soils start cracking. We have a lot of clay soils down here, and so through that cracking process, you kind of have that natural disking or replication of disking just by those soils separating and exposing different layers of the seed bank. And so that's something that you really see between May and towards the end of June. So down here on the coast and really across the entire Gulf Coast, our growing season is three hundred plus days in length, and so that's something that when you're managing up north or in different parts of the country, that growing season really plays an important role in our timing for habitat management down here on the coast.
• 34:00
  And so a lot of these soil manipulation practices, whether it's disking or roller chopping, are something that we would typically wait until the July 4 kind of timeframe to start implementing because we can grow a food crop rather we can produce native plants between, say, July 10 and September 15 that will be available for that first influx of waterfowl being blooming teal through our region. And so that kind of seventy five day period is optimal for producing your barnyard grass and you wild mill it, red rice, and species like that. And so that's kind of the time frame that you would look at for those species. If you want to bump it into your early hunting season, kind of the October 1, you could delay those planting until August 15 time frame, and then you still have plenty of time before the opening of hunting season season in November. And that's more of your carbohydrates, which is waterfowl are really after early early in the season when they're first arriving, trying to rebuild those fat reserves from the migration, and then some of them are trying to stock up to continue moving south.
• 35:24
  Mike Brasher: How how common is it this is similar to a question I asked you earlier, but how common is it on some of those wetland management complexes for them to have some units that they keep water on or at least try to keep water on throughout the year for a given year, and then maybe they rotate it out next year and and kinda draw that down, the idea being that by providing a diversity of of structure and habitat type, maybe they're going to appeal to a wider diversity of waterfowl or provide some assurances or a different type of of food base and maybe assure themselves of some water or a different type of habitat, but how much of that do you see, like these semi permanent wetlands that they may cycle through or rotate through?
• 36:13
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. There certainly are places on the coast where you have that complex, where you have the capability to hold water and rotate your management practices year over year. But through the Texas Prairie wetlands project, the minimum acre size is 25 acres. And so in in many cases, like, one individual or one landowner may only be able to construct a 25 acre wetland on their property. And so that's probably more common where you have these annual management practices just because of the area or the scale of what the wetlands are on the landscape, but there are certainly some landowners out there that have larger pieces of property or larger complexes of wetlands out there that you do see that longer retention of water for breeding model ducks, and then you have more of a diversity in your carbohydrate production through Pennsylvania smartweed and your barnyard grasses, and then some that are focused more on your submerged aquatics and invertebrate populations.
• 37:19
  And so it kind of depends on the the land that you're working with or the landowner that you're working with and their ability to build wetlands out there on the landscape.
• 37:31
  Mike Brasher: And then I'm sure as you get into the true coastal marsh of that landscape, you see a bit more of that diversity of those areas that do hold some kind of water throughout the year. Some of it may be tidally influenced, and in others, which may be may be more intensively managed units where you do have greater control over the water. And so, you know, I I think a lot of what we've been talking about here is it is it fair to say that the majority of these Texas spray wetland project sites and Texas coastal wetland project sites or program sites would be largely within, quote, the agricultural landscape? I know there's some that skip that will get down into that coastal marsh area, but are these mostly in what most people would view as an agricultural landscape?
• 38:16
  Taylor Abshire: Certainly for the Texas Prairie Wetlands Project, heavy hitting counties directly overlap with historical rice production, so Wharton, Colorado, Matteborg County on the West Side Of Houston, and then Liberty, Jefferson, and Chambers County on the East Side Of Houston are are typically where you see some of those larger production or larger prairie wetland projects. Outside of that, there's not as much water infrastructure, so surface water from irrigation districts, which landowners typically rely on for supplemental water. I mean, everybody has droughts, and sometimes it's feast or famine down here on the coast. And so when you can align a project with a surface water use, then landowners are more likely to frequently flood and manage that site for for waterfowl. And kind of the other side of that is we've worked with rice producers since the beginning of this program in 1991.
• 39:20
  Roughly 50% of the projects that we have been that we have delivered have been in conjunction with rice producers in that agricultural practice. Levees and water control structure are key to rice production, and so it's a really good opportunity to overlap wetland habitat with practices that the landowners are already using. You're not taking away like, land use is a is a hot topic down here on the coast. Right? Whether it's ranching, farming, and now you have oil and gas, wind, solar.
• 39:53
  So you have a lot of competing factors for land, but working with rice producers, these these projects really go hand in hand. The infrastructure is there. They can continue to manage and farm for agriculture. So, yeah, those are certainly the top five counties that the projects are delivered in, but we have seen a fair amount or more of our Texas coastal wetlands project outside of those counties just because we're not working in that agricultural landscape. And so you do get more of a diverse habitat type working in that habitat management program versus the brick and mortar Prairie wetland project.
• 40:34
  Mike Brasher: Well, what y'all have done there was program expansion and program sustain I guess sustainability of those programs for so many years is really, really impressive. We haven't even talked about the particular type of work that y'all do on those public areas, state and federal areas there in the coastal zone, and I know it is extensive, and we will maybe we'll get you back on sometime to talk about some of those projects. I know there's some really neat things that we're doing, and and our footprint there in the in the public land area is substantial, and and we love working there on public land because of of all the reasons that people can imagine in terms of its support for the birds, but also import importance for supporting access for all of the public, whether it be consumptive or nonconsumptive uses, and we do have a significant presence there, we'd love to share that story too. Where can people learn more? How can people learn more about any of the programs that are available if they're a private landowner or wetland manager in that area that you cover there along the Texas coast?
• 41:44
  How can they where can they get more information?
• 41:46
  Taylor Abshire: Yeah. So we we have some information on the Ducks Unlimited website under Texas conservation. And then I think you can go in and do search ducks.org/tpwp to get information on our private lands program. I know we've had some revisions to that specific webpage, so I'm not sure if it's accessible or not. But there's some information online, and then you could contact me by email or contact our field office.
• 42:18
  We can get you in contact with the appropriate biologist for management and or implementation of habitat projects.
• 42:27
  Mike Brasher: Taylor, I just looked online, and that ducks.org/tpwp does not work. Okay. What the but you can go to ducks.org and click that little search icon and type in Texas Prairie Wetlands Project, and you will get the information that you are looking for. It's the first return that comes up. So talks about that.
• 42:54
  Has some has some guidelines, technical assistance requests formed, and a phone number for Texas field office there. So go check that out, folks. Anything else, Taylor?
• 43:04
  Taylor Abshire: No. I thank you for your time today. Happy to be on the podcast with y'all, and this is the first time.
• 43:10
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. No. It was great, man. You brought great information for a very important area, a couple of very important programs that we have. And like I said, this is sort of only one part of what we're doing there, a lot of work on public land all across the Gulf Coast, and would love to tell that story as well.
• 43:27
  You're a part of that. We'll get you on in the future to do that. Thank you, Taylor. Best of luck throughout the rest of the summer, and like I said, you know, just a few more months before you'll start thinking about dove season and then teal season, and then we'll be back at it again out there in the field. So thank you, man.
• 43:42
  Taylor Abshire: Yep. Absolutely. Never leaves our mind when it comes to habitat management. Year round process.
• 43:47
  Mike Brasher: That's right. Thank you, Taylor. Thanks. A very special thanks to our guest on today's episode, Taylor Absher, regional biologist for Ducks Unlimited covering the states of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. We thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for the great work he does on these episodes, and we thank you, the listener, for being with us and for your support of wetlands and waterfowl conservation.
• 44:07
  VO: That's a wrap for today's episode of the Ducks Unlimited Podcast brought to you by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. From post hunt unwinds to celebrations back at camp, Bird Dog delivers award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe, and check out ducks.org/dupodcast for more stories, science, and all things waterfowl. Guest opinions are their own and don't necessarily reflect those of Ducks Unlimited. Until next time, stay fired up, stay focused, and stay tuned to the ducks.