CVM researcher develops tool to improve Chronic Wasting Disease resistance in white-tailed deer

August 5, 2020
Land Conservation and Stewardship

Christopher Seabury, an associate professor of genomics at the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM), has confirmed that certain aspects of the white-tailed deer’s response to chronic wasting disease (CWD) are moderately to highly heritable, or passed from parent to offspring, and can be predicted using a custom genomic tool designed by Seabury and his team. This custom tool, a novel array designed by Seabury, can be used to predict a white-tailed deer’s responses to…

How 45 million hunters and anglers are aiming to bypass Hollywood

August 3, 2020
Land Conservation and Stewardship

The ideological fault lines running between the coasts and the American heartland, turning red and blue to code words, are manifesting in everything from politics and religion to television and films. For many middle Americans who are so often portrayed as uneducated rubes by coastal content companies, there’s a move afoot to leave media giants behind and chart their own path forward… “There are more than 45 million Americans who hunt and fish,” says Liberatore, “that’s more people than live…

Water, Texas: When it rains, Texas forgets drought and worsening water scarcity

August 3, 2020
Drought

Among the famed springs that distinguish the Texas Hill Country as a region of crystal-clear water and iconic swimming holes, Jacob’s Well stands out. The spring’s water source is rain that falls on the thin soils of Hays County and filters through porous limestone before filling a network of deep, ancient caves… When it’s wet in Hays County and the 16 other counties that form the Hill Country, Jacob’s Well pours about 900 gallons a minute into Cypress Creek, more…

Springs that form Headwaters of San Antonio River protected forever

August 3, 2020
Conservation Easements

The springs that form the headwaters of the San Antonio river will be forever protected from development, thanks to an agreement involving the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word and Green Spaces Alliance. On Friday, leaders of the Headwaters Preserve at Incarnate Word told the Rivard Report they had placed the 53-acre preserve north of downtown under a conservation easement. A conservation easement is a restrictive covenant that permanently bars construction, paving over natural surfaces, mining, or drilling on…

Hays County Parks & Open Space Advisory Commission makes recommendations to Court

August 3, 2020
Habitat Conservation Plans

Press Release: Hays County Parks and Open Space Advisory Commission (POSAC) – For Immediate Release: July 31, 2020 The Hays County Parks and Open Space Advisory Commission (POSAC) made its recommendations to the Hays County Commissioners Court on July 28 for a potential bond package in the range of $75 to $80 Million to fund new parks, trails, open spaces, natural areas, habitat, water quality and flood mitigation lands in Hays County. Over the past five months, POSAC received 18 projects proposals from…

For Texas landowners, breeding exotic animals is big business

August 3, 2020
Land Conservation and Stewardship

When the rain began, the antelope and deer of the Y.O. Ranch Headquarters gathered to chew idly beneath the sparse trees. For 10 days in October 2018, a line of storms pounded the Texas Hill Country. Brown currents rose over a bridge on the ranch, spilling out over the roads and gullies of this 14,000-acre property 140 miles west of Austin. The flood tugged at the 8-foot fences around the ranch until it finally pulled them down. That was when…

Hays County aims at enhancing connectivity, recreation options with Cape’s Pond Project

August 1, 2020
Habitat Conservation Plans

Hays County is aiming at enhancing and expanding regional connectivity and recreation options for county residents with the acquisition of 28.7 acres of property near the San Marcos River… Hays County General Counsel Mark Kennedy said in a press release that the project was discussed as a “key land acquisition to provide multi-modal transportation connectivity between currently disconnected areas of San Marcos and local hike and bike trail systems, including those that are in the planning stages.” Read more from…

Thrown under the bus? Tax deal leaves future of aquifer, trails programs unsettled

July 27, 2020
Groundwater Resources

Nirenberg and VIA Metropolitan Transit have agreed on a proposal to temporarily fund the City’s coronavirus response, then shift that funding to VIA Metropolitan Transit. The funding would come from a one-eighth-cent sales tax that currently pays for the Edwards Aquifer Protection Program(EAPP) and the Howard W. Peak Linear Greenway Trail system. The compromise seemingly put an end to weeks of arguments between Nirenberg and San Antonio’s transportation authority. But the agreement didn’t address alternative means of funding the EAPP…

New Mexico town, oil companies in fight over water use

July 27, 2020
Groundwater Resources

“I don’t want to call it a war, but we’re fighting for our lives down here,” Jal Mayor Stephen Aldridge said, standing under the scorching, 100-degree sun on a recent afternoon. The dispute is over who gets to control water in this parched corner of southeastern New Mexico: Should the oil industry have access to tens of millions of barrels a year for operations like hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, or should the aquifer be conserved for local residents who…

Llano County commissioners, residents voice concerns over sand plant

July 24, 2020
Land Conservation and Stewardship

Not one of the more than a dozen people sharing their thoughts July 13 about a proposed sand-excavation project on private property on County Road 309 outside of Kingsland had a good thing to say about it. Several voiced concerns that the Llano County Commissioners Court would even consider allowing such an operation. “The county is pretty limited, frankly, with the authority we have here,” said Llano County Precinct 1 Commissioner Peter Jones. “We do not have land-use authority.” Read…