News & Updates
Outdoors for all: Access to nature is a human right
A FEW YEARS AGO, pediatrician and clinical scientist Nooshin Razani treated a four-year-old girl whose family had recently fled Yemen and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. The family had received news the night before that members of the father’s family had been...
Texas groundwater supplies are shrinking, and that’s a threat to us all
My great-grandfather founded our family’s Hill Country ranch in 1887. For nearly 100 years, spring water flowed through the seeps and creeks of our land, year-round, and almost without exception. The water began to dry up a little more than 30 years ago as more people...
An epic monarch migration faces new threats
One of nature’s most extraordinary spectacles unfolds in the 10,000-foot-high conifer forests of Michoacán, Mexico. In mid-November, swirling orange-and-black clouds appear in the skies above the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a 139,019-acre sanctuary carved out...
How to poison feral hogs (and only feral hogs)
Early one winter morning in 2020, Kurt VerCauteren discovered a cluster of dead birds in a barren field in northwest Texas. They were small birds, mostly dark-eyed juncos, but also a smattering of white-crowned sparrows. VerCauteren’s team had poisoned them,...
lege+water: mid-May 2021 Update
Every month during the 87th Regular Session of the Texas Legislature, Dr. Todd Votteler and Dr. Robert Mace provide an update on water-related legislation. The key water committees are Water, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs in the Senate, chaired by Senator Charles...
Folks in the field: Katherine Romans
Starting as the Landowner Outreach Manager at Hill Country Alliance, Katherine Romans love for the region combined with her non-profit and policy expertise made her a natural fit to become the Executive Director for the regional non-profit organization. Romans lives...
Pristine streams in Texas need protection. It’s up to the state Senate to act.
The first time I paddled the Nueces River I was blown away by the water — crystal clear, aqua colored, almost tropical. I could easily see the bottom of the river many feet below me and fish as they darted under my kayak. Fed by springs that percolate up from...
Many Texas trees still suffering from February’s winter storm won’t make it, arborists say
If you haven’t noticed, some of Central Texas’ trees aren’t looking so good. Live oaks with leaves sprouting from the branches and trunk. Ash trees with a sporadic green on only half of the canopy. Loquat, fig and citrus trees with growth at the base of the tree and...
Rebecca Creek salamanders could warrant Federal protection
Lizard-like amphibians with elongated bodies and tails, short limbs and external gills are the focus of scientists keeping tabs on groundwater health in Rebecca Creek. In April, Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA) staff headed out to the area with U.S. Fish and...