- NARRATOR: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure-- it's what we share.

Funding also provided by Academy Sports and Outdoors.

Helping hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts of all ages get outside.

Out here, fun can't lose.

[theme music] - ANNOUNCER: Coming up on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - Leafcutter ants cut leaves because they're actually using the leaves to create a fungus that they consume.

They are sort of the gardeners of the ant world.

While we were growing up, I assumed that everybody had a frontier fort in their backyard.

- Those memories and those special moments, you will not forget.

[theme music] - ANNOUNCER: Texas Parks & Wildlife, a television series for all outdoors.

♪ ♪ [curious music] - Did you know that there's over 290 native species of ants in Texas?

When most people think of ants in Texas, they think of imported red fire ants, but there's a whole wide world of ants that you may not know about here in Texas.

From where I'm standing here in this park, there are four different species of ants.

Right over here, we have a red imported fire ant mound.

This is the type of ant that most people in Texas think about when they think about ants as pests.

And that's because they have a painful sting that if you step especially on their nest, they'll come out and bite you.

The red imported fire ant mound looks sometimes just like a pile of dirt scattered about.

So, as they excavate the nest, they throw extra soil around the opening and there's no one entrance.

There's many small little holes all throughout.

And here we have a red harvester ant mound.

Unlike the fire ants, the harvester ants clear an area of vegetation around their nest.

They go out early in the day and they bring back seed and other food resources that they can scavenge in the environment.

Here, we have two classic examples of a pyramid ant mound.

Look at this beautiful one.

It's circular in shape and you can see where the pyramid ants have excavated the soil up and out.

Some people say that pyramid ants are called pyramid ants because their nests look like a pyramid, but to me it looks more like a bit of a flattened pancake or crater.

And right here on the side of the paved trail, we have a leafcutter ant nest.

It spans this whole section of trail and it looks sort of loose and unruly, but if you look closely, you can see a few entrance and exit holes.

This nest could be several decades old, and just like many other organisms, these leafcutter ants have periods of high activity and low activity.

They really get active in the fall when they start cutting leaves to bring down to their nest.

[upbeat music] Now, leafcutter ants cut leaves because they're actually using the leaves to feed a fungus that they consume.

They're sort of the gardeners of the ant world.

- NARRATOR: Native ants play an important part in our natural ecosystems in a variety of ways.

Their tunneling serves to aerate the soil.

Their foraging disperses seeds.

♪ ♪ They play a crucial role in the cycling of nutrients by breaking down dead organic matter.

Ants can act as natural pest controllers, preying on other insects.

Other insects also use ant nests for food and shelter.

Native ants serve as a crucial food source for other animals, most notably, the horned lizard.

This is why Kira Gangbin is studying ways to help horned lizards by killing imported fire ants.

- Right now, we're trying to find a way to poison fire ants.

Fire ants are an invasive species.

They came to the United States in the '30s.

And the reason we're trying to poison these fire ants is because it's thought that fire ants hurt horned lizards.

Horned lizards need to eat native ants, like harvester ants, pyramid ants, big-headed ants, but the fire ants are out-competing all of our native ants, leaving the horned lizards nothing to eat.

So, we have six different transects that we're doing.

So, each of these transects has 121 different spots where we're putting a deli cup and a hot dog piece.

So, we put these hot dogs out in the environment.

We leave them there for about 30 minutes.

Ready, go.

After 30 minutes has lapsed, we come back to the hot dog piece and we see, okay, what kind of ants showed up?

Was there a fire ant that showed up or were there native ants?

If there's native ants there, we leave them alone.

Basically, all of those ants just got a free hot dog lunch.

But if they're fire ants, then we will poison them with a poison called Amdro, and this is a poison that's very specific for ants.

This site, we call this site Middle East, this is our control site.

So, at this site we are not going to put out any poison.

We are just going to look and see what kind of ants are there.

That way we have a site so we can compare to see if our site that did get poisoned is different than this site that does not get poison.

There's a variety of ways I can tell that these are cheese ants just by looking at them based off of their smaller size.

They move very quickly.

They also have that yellow color.

And they're also one of the most common ants we have out here at Mason Mountain.

What's a cool fun fact about cheese ants is if you actually took a couple and you smushed them between your fingers and smelt it, it actually kind of smells like cheese.

That's how they get their name.

They have some kind of chemical defense.

It looks like these guys are big-headed ants, and so these ants are probably most commonly misidentified as fire ants.

The big difference is, if you look really closely, there's two different types of worker ants when it comes to big-headed ants.

So, some of these workers have disproportionately sized heads, so their heads are bigger than the others.

Those are like the fighters of the colony.

The other workers, they're called minor workers, they have much smaller heads and these are the ones that are more tending to the nest and the colony.

So, acrobat ants are slightly larger than our fire ants and our big-headed ants, but the key characteristic for acrobat ants is they have really pointy butts, or pointy abdomens.

And so you can see they're behind almost makes a heart shape.

So, here we have a harvester ant nest, also known as a harvester ant colony.

I've also heard people refer to these as red ants here in Texas.

And these ants are really critical for horned lizard diets.

It's said to be about 85% of an adult horned lizard's diet is all of these harvester ants.

And if you look closely, you can see some winged ants coming out.

Those are called alates.

Those are the reproductives.

So, probably a couple hours, those ants are going to fly up, they're going to mate in the air, and they're going to start the next generation of harvester ants and make new nests and new colonies.

- NARRATOR: The other smaller native ants are what the baby horned lizards need to eat, so that's why protecting all of our native ants is so important.

- Now, these ones were fire ants.

That's why we have this yellow substance on it.

That's the poison.

But we're going to collect the ants now and also all of the poison that is on this hot dog.

The whole goal of this project is we don't want to leave any leftover poison out in the environment.

We don't want the native ants to get it.

So, now that these fire ants have had about an hour to eat on this poison, hopefully they've taken this poison back to the queen ant.

We really want to kill the queen ant.

Now we can collect it and bring it inside for data analysis.

- NARRATOR: You can use this same method to target fire ant mounts around your home.

Place the top of a plastic container on the mound and add the poison bait.

Leave it for an hour or so to allow the fire ants to carry away the poison.

Then, place the container on the lid and remove it.

This reduces the chances that native ants will be poisoned.

Another way to treat small colonies of imported fire ants is to simply pour boiling water on the mound.

This may take a couple of applications to penetrate down to the queen.

There are other invasive ants that have expanded into Texas, like the tawny crazy ant and the Argentine ant.

The key to dealing with ants is to know which species you've encountered.

Our native ants are a vital part of the Texas ecosystem and their presence indicates a healthy environment.

Texas native ants deserve our protection.

[upbeat music] [birds chirping] [gentle music] - My name is Garland Richards.

You're on Chadbourne Ranch.

I was raised on the ranch.

My great-granddad was out here and we were raised cowhands.

While we're growing up, I assumed that everybody had a frontier fort in their backyard.

[gentle music] Fort Chadbourne was on its way of disappearing, and we had a chance to try to do something with it.

We took it, and I think we've done a pretty good job.

If somebody tells me I can't do it, we'll see how far I can go.

- LANA: When you're passing through this area, pull up to the gold spur, push the green button, and we'll give you a grand tour.

- Fort Chadbourne is an educational tour, and it's part of West Texas history.

We've recovered almost a million artifacts from Fort Chadbourne.

You've got the cowboys, you've got the Indians, you've got the settlers, and you've got the Gold Rush.

Everybody's got a bad habit.

The guns that are in Fort Chadbourne, I've been collecting since I was 10 years old.

One of my main interests in there is probably the Sharps rifles.

Many of those particular guns were used in this area to hunt buffalo.

All of this history, if we do not preserve this, it will simply disappear.

- We love and appreciate our military.

You know, we're in between two bases, San Angelo and Abilene.

We have a lot of those people that come out here and see what this is.

- Served for just shy of seven years.

I was joined in 2000, I believe it was 2009 is when I joined, and I got out in 2016.

- Cody is my stepson.

He's a Purple Heart recipient.

He's top notch.

[engine rumbling] - My wildlife management plan is to try and produce some of the best whitetail in the state.

Some of the steps that we've taken is doing some brush clearing with mechanical.

Then we're turning around back behind that, and we're reseeding this with native grasses and the native forbs.

We're also establishing a better water system by putting some water wells and running water lines across this ranch.

It gives us a more permanent water source.

[cattle mooing] When I noticed we had an overgrazing problem, we backed the cows out of this.

Since we got rid of the cattle and now that we have our grass has started to establish better, my fawn crops have been over 100% for almost five years in a row now.

[gentle music] To be able to have the same ranch for close to 150 years in the same family, you've got to continue to evolve.

I've seen the switch from primarily a cattle operation to involve hunting.

This is part of the evolution of ranching and trying to make ends meet, to be able to keep the ranch together, and in addition to that, do this historical project.

I'm truly amazed at what we've been able to accomplish.

- I have 150 years of family ranching history.

I'm hoping that what I do today, my family is still carrying this on 150 years from now.

- I was put on the earth to take care of Fort Chadbourne.

We've done a good job.

[gentle music] [birds chirping] [dramatic music] - Going out and hunting not only creates a big bond, but you get to spend more time with your husband and your children.

- All the doves are flying.

- Yeah, they're all flying.

[wings flapping] [gun clicking] Can you still hear me?

- Huh?

[group laughing] - Can you still hear me?

- At one time it was just me and the kids, we're out in the woods, you know, going, and then my wife didn't hunt.

She just loved to fish.

And then one day I asked her, "Hey, would you love to join us?"

And now that I got her in the woods, now I got an animal.

[laughs] [gun firing] - Yes, got it.

I can't stop.

I love it.

It's now a competition.

[laughing] And yes, last year I was better.

- It ain't nothing better than having a family out here, You know, it's priceless.

[sentimental music] - We're here today with my husband, two of my children, which is Scotty and Shane, [muffled speaking] and my grandson Noah.

[hands slap] - Ooh.

Ooh.

[laughs] - It's not only about being with the family.

Just sitting out there enjoying the wildlife, the adventure, the nature.

It's so beautiful.

[birds chirping] I just love it.

[birds chirping] [dramatic music] - The benefits of having WMAs in the state of Texas are that we serve as an example of good land stewards, but also provide public hunting opportunities, because the vast majority of Texas is privately owned.

Once you pay the annual public hunting permit, you get access to nearly 1,000,000 acres of public hunting opportunities.

While the management areas also serves as shelter for a lot of native species of Texas, some of those that are endangered, WMAs help keep Texas wild.

[javelinas growling] [dramatic music] - There are a lot of great places to dove hunt across the state of Texas, but when it comes to public lands, Las Palomas WMA has been kind of the premier spot.

This is where most of our hunters see the best success year in and year out.

This property was acquired with hunter funds from the Migratory Game Bird Endorsement, and the funds from that endorsement go directly back into habitat conservation and public hunting opportunities.

- Here in the WMAs is basically the spot I'll probably stay and hunt for the rest of my life.

You come out early morning, the sun's coming up, dew's on the grass, loading up your gun, and getting ready for the day's hunt.

It's a little piece of heaven.

There are some getting up right there.

Just get your $48 license, you hunt and go home.

It's carefree.

A little high.

The hunting is great.

I wouldn't give it up for anything.

[laughs] It look like they're coming from the south side and coming across the field.

Should be able to give us some action here in a little bit.

Here comes a dove right here.

Here we go.

[upbeat music] [gun firing] [gun firing] Got him.

Looking for the birds are the hardest part.

It's not bad.

It's a good job for a dog though.

See feathers here.

Here we go.

[sighs] Gold mine.

Found her.

[upbeat music] Let's get back to work.

[cicada chirping] The patience of dove hunting.

[suspenseful music] Waiting for the next one.

[bird cooing] Here we go.

[gun firing] Five shots, four birds.

That's pretty good.

[laughs] As I'm leaving the field, I'm thinking about the next time I will put my feet on Las Palomas.

It's been a good year, and I'll see everybody next year in the same place.

- Here comes one, right over top.

[gun firing] - Oh, I missed.

- You can be my bird watcher.

So, we're gonna go down here, and we're gonna look for some birds, and you're gonna find them for me.

You ready?

Let's go, come on.

- Here comes one, right here.

Ah, you see that Shane?

[guns firing] - CAROL: Yes, got it.

- We were able to take one down, finally.

Is it a white wing or mourning dove?

- Mourning dove.

- No, it's a white one, look.

You don't usually get a family that do it all, so it's really something special, honestly, to have mom and pops and the little ones out here, honestly.

Teaching 'em the ropes.

- I got a bird.

- All right!

- First bird.

That's so awesome.

- What kind of bird is that?

- It's a white wing.

- GREGORY: You're a good little bird dog.

- There you go.

Look at him following Shane.

- SHANE: Come on, Noah.

[Carol laughing] - I'm gonna look for more birds.

- I like that he has a big smile on his face, and he's got something to go home and tell Mama.

She's gonna be proud of him.

That makes us happy as grandparents.

- Gotta look around, up in the trees, in the sunflower field.

- CAROL: Seeing our children, at a very young age, bonding, family time, the memories, all those pictures I took.

All those wonderful moments.

It's just something very precious to a mother, to see those kids loving it and the excitement and the fun that we had together.

It's tradition that's passing down.

[laughing] [guitar music] Now the family's here at my house, and this is the most wonderful part of it all.

After we go hunting, we have a great dinner.

Thank you for letting us harvest this food that we're about to eat.

What makes me happy is having the family together.

[laughing] Those traditions just keep on going.

Those memories and those special moments you will not forget, and it's just priceless.

- I'm Morgan O'Hanlon, a Senior Staff Writer at "Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine".

- And I'm David Yoskowitz, Executive Director Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

♪ Better outside ♪ - MORGAN: Together, we're bringing you a new show about how life's better outside and the people who work every day to make outside better.

♪ Better outside ♪ In each episode, we'll take you into the great outdoors.

- This will be good.

- MORGAN: Whether we're out counting sheep.

- Gotcha.

- Good shot.

- MORGAN: On the hunt for invasive species or just taking a trip down the river, you'll learn something new about conservation in the Lone Star State.

♪ Better outside ♪ So are you ready to go outside?

♪ Better outside ♪ [upbeat rock music] - NARRATOR: Next time on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - If I had to pick the animal that's going to be the hardest to find, it would be the ringtail.

Got the shot.

- It's a wonderful feeling.

The birds are just amazing.

It's a good feeling to see that you've done something for nature.

- That's a trophy right there.

The kings of the spring, that's the Green-throated Darter.

Beautiful, beautiful fish.

- NARRATOR: That's next time on Texas Parks & Wildlife.

[birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] - NARRATOR: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure-- it's what we share.

Funding also provided by Academy Sports and Outdoors.

Helping hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts of all ages get outside.

Out here, fun can't lose.