A symbiotic relationship in the Panhandle

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Tuesday, May 21st. You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re glad you’re along with us today! Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: wildlife restoration.

A report released this month cites human factors as the cause of most Texas wildfires since 2000. That includes the latest fire that burned over 1 million acres. The economic loss from the Smokehouse Creek Fire could exceed $1 billion.

MAST: So, restoring the land is vital to recovery.

Reporter Bonnie Pritchett brings us a story from the Panhandle on competing best practices to care for the land and everything on it.

BRODY LARKIN: My name is Brody Larkin, and I am the wildlife biologist here at the Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area…

BONNIE PRITCHETT: Larkin steers his Texas Parks and Wildlife Department truck onto the 5,400 acre Wildlife Management Area, or WMA. It’s been almost three weeks since the wildfire burned 98 percent of the property.

Larkin explains the role of the WMA as he scans flame-scarred cottonwoods and charred stubble of undergrowth for signs of life.

LARKIN: Texas has wildlife management areas as a research and demonstration site for different wildlife management techniques, and range management techniques. Not only for, maybe, their cattle operations, but as well as for native wildlife and native habitat.

The grasses and thickets that once covered the WMA and the surrounding ranches fed livestock and wildlife. They also provided cover for fawns and nesting quail and turkeys from predators.

LARKIN: And not having them is going to be an issue. But we estimate that with good rainfall and just good conditions, they'll have their habitat mostly back by midsummer. So, it's all a matter of when we get the rains and if we get the rains, but if we don't, it's just going to take longer, but they will recover.

Cal Ferguson can’t wait.

CAL FERGUSON: In this part of the world, we get 20 inches of rain a year, and we go six months without it at times.

Ferguson owns a hunting outfitting service that provides guided hunts on 100,000 acres of land he leases from area ranchers. More than half it burned, killing or displacing the wildlife. He began canceling hunts.

By April, $50,000 in potential income had gone up in smoke.

FERGUSON: There's not a lot of safety net for people in this industry like there is for cattle, the cattle ranchers. The majority of them had insurance on the cattle. There's no such thing as insurance for free range and wildlife. Wildlife belongs to the State of Texas, not the landowner.

And since he doesn’t own the land he operates on, he has no claim to losses incurred there either.

In Texas, hunting is a multi-billion-industry. Restoration of the Panhandle’s wildlife populations to pre-fire numbers could take years.

Reece Watson, a pastor, grew up witnessing the Panhandle fires. Since February he's been assisting with disaster relief. That includes helping ranchers with the gruesome and heartbreaking task of dispatching gravely injured cattle and burying them with those killed in the blaze. The ranchers told him they've lost more than livestock.

REECE WATSON: And then on every single ranch, almost without exception, you can look in the fields and they would say, “Hey, that's where my deer stand is, or was.” And, “That's where my feeder was.” And you could go out there and you could look and it was all burned and there wasn't anything left.

Ferguson explains the symbiotic relationship between landowner and hunter.

FERGUSON: It is important, and I was afraid that it would be overlooked, that a lot of these ranchers make up to 20% of their income off of the wildlife. And so it's a great supplement to them.

Ranchers lease their land for hunting rights.

FERGUSON: And so it's an integral part of everybody being able to make it all work around here.

How will that work now?

FERGUSON: Wildlife management having always been my passion, I immediately went to supplemental feeding.

That meant distributing hay and feed in the burned areas for the wildlife. Donated hay pouring into the region fed livestock but didn’t provide the nutrient value wildlife needed.

FERGUSON: I had put a post out on one of the wildfire update pages: “Hey, let's not forget about the wildlife. You know, they're going to be important to see through this as well.” And it just exploded.

Truckloads of wildlife specific hay and high protein feed began arriving faster than volunteers could distribute it to the landowners.

State agencies discourage supplemental feeding. They argue the practice further stresses damaged habitat and can slow recovery. Also, wildlife congregating in feeding areas can spread disease.

Brody Larkin shares that concern. The WMA biologist knows the situation looks bleak but insists recovery that is best for the land, the wildlife, and the people who live here takes time.

LARKIN: We have not supplemented any feeding out here. And we don't have any plans to. We're just gonna let nature be nature and we're just gonna let them find their forage and there's always going to be something for them out here.

Larkin, Cal Ferguson, and Reece Watson all have their roots in the Panhandle. They generally agree on land management best practices, including the “let nature take its course” perspective.

Up to a point. A frustrated Watson explains.

WATSON: It's not natural. I mean, a wildfire is natural. But none of these fires started from a natural point. These were not lightning strikes. These were not freak accidents that happen by a force of nature. These were man-caused accidents.

The Smokehouse Creek Fire began when neglected power poles snapped in high winds sending live wires into dry grass.

While the repeated human cause for the destruction frustrates Ferguson it doesn’t change his circumstances.

FERGUSON: I've told most of my buddies in the industry that I probably would just have to get a day job until something changed. God has seen us through this quite a few times. And even though there were many times along the way that we hadn't been able to see the other side of it. You just have to have faith that there is one. We’ve burned out before and we're still here.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Bonnie Pritchett in the Texas Panhandle.

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