Big Thicket Reporter - 2007/02/15

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GRANTS AWARDED

BROWN FOUNDATION

The Brown Foundation generously awarded $50,000 to BTA for personnel and operating funds to manage BTA projects, particularly the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory [Thicket of Diversity}. The Association urgently needs an Executive Director and clerical assistance to meet increasing demands of projects that critically challenge volunteer leadership.

The Brown Foundation, Inc. was founded in July, 1951 by Herman and Margarett Root Brown and George R. and Alice Pratt Brown. Since its inception it has awarded more than $1.35 billion in grants through the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006.

The BTA's gratitude to the Brown Foundation is boundless. In the past their largesse contributed handsomely to the renovation of the Field Research Station, and then they made it possible for BTA to partner with other organizations to purchase 680 acres to protect the Visitor Center area from development.

T.L.L. TEMPLE FOUNDATION

The T.L.L. Temple Foundation was equally generous with a $20,000 gift earmarked for support of the Taxa Working Groups, Thicket of Diversity. The T.L.L. Temple Foundation was established in 1962 by Georgia Temple Munz in honor of her father, Thomas Lewis Latane Temple, an East Texas lumberman. This Foundation and the whole Temple family have a strong commitment to the forests of East Texas, the preservation of its history and culture, as well as social and educational projects.

BTA previously received a grant to publish the Temple Big Thicket Series, which now includes five numbers.

BIG THICKET DAY REPRISE

Big Thicket Day attracted an SRO crowd this year on Oct. 14. President Ellen Buchanan presented a report highlighting the 2006 activity.

The R.E. Jackson Award was conferred to Billy Hallmon, and Leta Parker received the Lubbert Superior Achievement Award. Then BTNP Superintendent Todd Brindle updated activity in the Preserve, followed by a report form President Jerry Cook on the "Thicket of Diversity."

Strategic Plan

The program focused on the Strategic Plan for the Big Thicket National Preserve prepared by the BTA at the request of Cong. Kevin Brady, who wanted to know what the Preserve should "look like" and "where it should be" in five years.

An attentive crowd hears Congressman Kevin Brady's presentation.

Dr. Bruce Drury, Conservation Chair, presented a powerpoint overview of the plan, then he served as moderator for a panel looking at elements of the Plan. Andy Jones, The Conservation Fund covered Land Acquisition; Brandt Mannchen, Sierra Club, Big Thicket Committee, commented on Resource Management; and Dr. Pete Gunter, University of North Texas Regent's Professor of Philosophy (former BTA president) discussed Administration.

Andy Jones, The Conservation Fund, describes land acquisition efforts in the Big Thicket.

A second panel moderated by Hardin County Commissioner Ken Pelt (former BTA president) looked at Visitor Use, with Hardin County Judge Billy Caraway reviewing opportunities for visitor experience in the Preserve and in the community; East Texas Tourism Association's Tucker Conley covered marketing (with panache!). Deep East Texas Council of Government's Gary Hanlon talked about the Strategic Plan from a regional perspective

The weather cooperated and the crowd enjoyed a chicken spaghetti luncheon under a tent on the Field Research Station grounds - thanks to the good work of Judy Aronow, Cathy Johnston, and Katherine Walker.

Congressman Kevin Brady (left) shares lunch with Bruce Drury, Andy Jones, and Jeff Pittman.

Reactions to the plan were given by public officials who must help to implement the Plan. Tony Schetszle, Deputy Director of the NPS Intermountain Region commended the Plan, and Cong. Kevin Brady, MC. 8th Congressional District, stated that the Plan exceeded his expectations and would be helpful to him and other members of Congress in planning for parks.

Temple Big Thicket Series No. 5.

In the afternoon, an autograph party was held for Geraldine Watson's Big Thicket Plant Ecology, 3rd ed. publication date was Oct. 14.

Warren Preuss gets his copy of Big Thicket Plant Ecology signed by the author, Geraldine Watson.

Ecology is the fifth work of the "Temple Big Thicket Series" funded by T.L.L. Temple Foundation and published by the University of North Texas Press and the BTA. The first two editions of 1,000 copies each have long been out of print.

OTHER B.T.A. NEWS

The membership meeting heard committee reports and confirmed the results of the ballot for 2007 officers and directors. Officer terms are for two years, and can serve a maximum of two terms. As of January 1, Dr. Bruce Drury becomes president, Rosalie Rogers, Vice-President, and Ellen Buchanan moves to past-president. All incumbent directors were re-elected for 2007-08, and two new board members joined the roster:

Catherine Albrecht (TCEQ) and Elaine Allums (Kountze Mayor pro-tem and board of Kountze CofC). Former president Gene Feigelson and Silsbee attorney Dallas Barrington were added to the advisory board.

CONSERVATION OUTLOOK

Oil & Gas Decision

Excerpt from Lufkin Daily News Oct. 28

by Christine Diamond

A federal judge this week sent applications to drill for oil and gas beneath the BTNP back to NPS for further environmental assessments.

The NPS only owns surface lands – not the underground mineral rights to the estimated 1.21 million barrels of oil, 70.ll billion cubic feet of natural gas liquids. Between 1999-2004, NPS approved 19 directionally-drilled wells, and it anticipates another 29 such wells being drilled in the next 20 years.

“The Big Thicket has more gas and oil activity than … any other park in the service, said Brandt Mannchen, chair of the Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter’s Big Thicket Committee. .. Federal Judge John D. Bates ordered the park service … to fulfill requirements of NEPA and other federal laws before approving applications to drill from locations 100 to 500 feet outside the preserve boundaries … “That drilling activities would not result in impairment of park resources and values … or a significant impact on the human environment … are not supported…,” Bates wrote.

A Good Neighbor

Members of the regional and national management team for Hancock Forest Management met with representatives of the Big Thicket National Preserve, BTA, the Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, the Forest Service, and Texas Parks and Wildlife on November 6 at the Elegante Hotel in Beaumont to discuss mutual concerns. Hancock Forest, which manages some 500,000 acres of timber land in east Texas, wants to have good relations with its neighbors. The Hancock officials described their management policies as an effort to be responsible stewards of the environment (thus protecting special areas) while generating a reasonable return on the company’s investment (thus the use of clear-cutting). The face-to-face contact and airing of concerns was constructive.

Science Conference

The BT Science Conference Planning Committee met Dec. 14, 2:00 PM at the Field Research Station.

The conference is sponsored by several foundations, including the Temple-Inland Foundation, Magnolia Charitable Trust, and Entergy. Other sponsors include Big Thicket Association, The Nature Conservancy, Rice University, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept, USGS Biological Resources Division, USDA Forest Service, Big Thicket National Preserve, and NPS Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit at Texas A & M University.

THICKET OF DIVERSITY

All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory

By Dr. Jerry Cook, President, Executive Council

The Big Thicket All Taxa Biological Inventory (ATBI) continues to move forward with the recent addition of contributing scientists and a second mushroom walk.

This marks the transition from the planning stage of the ATBI to an active program that is documenting life in the Big Thicket with the help of contributing scientists and interested citizens.

Our initial active Taxonomic Working Groups (TWIGs) include mushrooms, lichens, pseudoscorpions, and vertebrate parasites. While this might seem like a strange combination of starting TWIGs, it illustrates the diversity and possibilities of the ATBI. With this article, I hope to highlight these TWIGs, with the hope that you will join the excitement of the Big Thicket ATBI.

Our first, and currently most active TWIG, is the mushroom (Macrofungi) group. TWIG leader David Lewis has led his second group of mushroom experts and volunteer naturalists into the Lance Rosier Unit of the Big Thicket. His first event netted 17 species of mushroom previously unknown to the Big Thicket. This was during dry, hot summer conditions, not the best scenario for finding mush-rooms. On November 11, conditions were much better and a less than two hour effort filled the tables at the Big Thicket Field Station with mushrooms.

I was amazed at the diversity of mushrooms and enthusiasm of the nearly 50 people who participated. All of this activity has been within a few acres of the Lance Rosier Unit. The promise of mushroom diversity in the entire Big Thicket is astounding.

Dr. Robert Egan, Professor of Biology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, was named the TWIG leader for lichens (more accurately lichen-forming fungi). In the late 1970’s Dr. Egan was a faculty member of Texas A&M where he published a preliminary checklist of lichens of Texas. These colorful species grow on tree bark, wood, rocks, leaves, soil, and a variety of other places. Through Dr. Eagan’s previous work there are 94 species in 45 genera already known from the Big Thicket. Within the next year or two, he predicts that the number may double. He will soon start a two year project that is funded by the Big Thicket ATBI.

A second new TWIG will survey aquatic ectotherms (fish and herps) and their parasites. This TWIG will be led by Dr. Mike Barger, Peru State College, and Dr. Scott Snyder, University of Nebraska Omaha. While their research is focused on parasites, they will naturally document the host species that are collected. We will essentially get a survey of both groups by funding this project. Why parasites as an early focus of our ATBI? Well if you consider that being a parasite is the most common form of life on earth it makes sense. Consider the fact that everything has parasites, in fact usually a whole suite of parasites. Even parasites have parasites (called hyperparasites). And, many of these parasites are specific to one host species. With this reality it Obviously parasites play a large part in the functioning of an ecosystem, yet they often go unsurveyed. Parasites are unknown for several vertebrate species that occur in the Big Thicket, and the fish and herp species that have been surveyed for parasites have not been surveyed from the Big Thicket. Quoting Dr. Barger, “The Big Thicket is a potential gold-mine of parasite species.” Results will not only document these species but will give Big Thicket managers needed information and insight about the vertebrate populations. The initial grant given to Barger and Snyder will be the start of a long term association with the Big Thicket.

Dr. Richard Clopton, with the help of Dr. Jerry Cook, will lead a TWIG to survey pseudoscorpions in the Big Thicket. As their name implies, pseudoscorpions (false scorpions) are not scorpions at all. They are small, blind arachnids that live in areas like leaf-litter, under bark, in bird nests, and many other places. So why are they important?

Well, they are top predators in the environments where they are found, although they are harmless to humans. They are charismatic little arthropods that we know very little about. No pseudoscorpion has ever been documented from the Big Thicket, however we have already found species occurring here and there is reason to believe that there will be quite a few species found, some of them probably new to science.

So where do we go from here? Getting started is often the largest obstacle and we have a start. In the coming months we should have several other TWIG leaders named. One or more TWIGs working on insects should soon be started, as well as a TWIG studying water bears (Phylum Tardigrada). We are still looking for experts to function as TWIG leaders.

With active TWIGs come opportunities for naturalists, or citizen scientists, to get involved. Our active and willing Education and Outreach Committee is coordinating those efforts. One of our main constraints will obviously be money to fund these activities. We have already had donations from a few generous supporters, but there is always need for more. Now that the ATBI is underway, we hope to provide the results and excitement to fuel the future