Recently in Wildlife Category

This spring has seen more than its fair share of snake calls at the Smith County Extension office.

Fortunately, most of the snakes you might encounter around the home will be of the non-venomous variety. But any encounter with a snake can be traumatic - for both the snake and the human.

The 'call of the spring' so far has been a shed snake skin of about 3 feet in length that was brought in by a very concerned father whose 5 year old had found it hanging from a shoe tree on the back of her bedroom closet. The shed keyed out to be from a non-venomous snake (most likely a Texas Rat snake) but that did little to quell concerns because they had not yet seen nor caught the home invading snake that left the shed skin behind.

Texas Parks and Wildlife officials at the Gus Engeling Wildlife Management Area near Tennessee Colony are hosting a Wildlife Tax Valuation Workshop on Saturday, March 8, 2008.

Texas Parks and Wildlife biologists, along with Natural Resource Conservation Service personnel will guide landowners through the development of a Wildlife Management Plan for their property at the event which will begin at 8:30 AM and conclude around 3:30 PM following a tour of the WMA. 

The location is the Wildlife Conservation Center at the Gus Engeling WMA, which is located at 16149 N US Hwy 287, Tennessee Colony, Texas (between Palestine and Corsicana).

Cost is $10 per person and includes a barbecue lunch.  Please RSVP by March 6th to Jennifer Ganter at        903-928-2251.  The following is a link to the Gus Engeling WMA on Texas Parks & Widlife's web site.

While we all swelter under the August sun, some one million Texans, as eager as a child waiting for Christmas day, are merrily taking inventory of their supplies and counting down the days until hunting season begins. Whether your idea of hunting is picking your way through mossy river bottoms listening for distant gobblers, slogging through the muck in the dark setting up decoys to draw in weary waterfowl, or perching in a tree waiting for that wide racked buck to pass nearby, hunting appeals to man's desire to commune with nature on a variety of levels. The experiences of the hunt (sights, smells, sounds), as well as the thrill of the pursuit, are what draw many from comfy homes and stressful offices each fall to the outdoors.