Texas Parks & Wildlife Foundation

TPWFs Engage program strives to engage and inspire all Texans to take an active interest in the natural wonders of our state by offering a wide variety of opportunities to experience Texas great outdoors and to help ensure a thriving future for the wild things and wild places of our state. Through this program, TPWF supports transformational projects at Texas State Parks. Between 2019 and mid-2023, TPWF led a campaign to raise funds through a landmark public-private partnership to open Palo Pinto Mountains State Park. TPWF successfully raised $10 million in private dollars to pair with public funding, which will allow Palo Pinto Mountains State Park to come to life for the people of Texas. Located 75 miles west of the Dallas/Fort Worth area and sitting on almost 5,000 acres of rambling hills and stunning vistas, this will be the first new state park in North Texas in over 25 years. In addition, TPWFs conservation leadership program, Stewards of the Wild, continues to engage and encourage hundreds of annual members across Texas to take an active role in being good stewards and champions of our wild things and wild places. 2023 marked the programs 10th anniversary, and it is now the largest conservation leadership program in Texas, with member-led chapters in most major metropolitan areas. In addition to educational events, conservation service projects, and statewide outdoor experiences, Stewards of the Wild offers mentored hunting and fishing opportunities that serve to connect novice and lapsed adult hunters with experienced hunters who can teach them practical, ethical and conservation elements of hunting in Texas.

TPWFs Lead program seeks to advance the capabilities of the Texas Game Wardens who have watched over the lands, waters, wildlife, and people of Texas for over 125 years. Every year Texas Game Wardens patrol over 10 million miles by vehicle and 160,000 hours by boat, facing challenges as unique as the 254 counties they serve. With more than 550 commissioned peace officers throughout the state, game wardens tirelessly lead the way in critical search and rescue operations; render aid during times of natural disaster like hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and wildfires; and provide conservation enforcement and education for fishing, hunting, and boating. Texas Game Wardens are widely recognized as the best trained corps of conservation officers in the nation, and 2022 marked the 5th anniversary of TPWFs successful Gear Up for Game Wardens program. Since its launch in 2017, Gear Up for Game Wardens has outfitted game wardens across Texas with specialized equipment ranging from thermal search and rescue drones and side-scan sonar units to custom-outfitted ATVs and UTVs for off-road patrols, and even custom-made skiffs for shallow-water patrols and seagrass regulation enforcement. The program has now raised over $3.9 million and procured and put into service an estimated value of $4.3 million in specialty equipment for game wardens in every region of the state.

TPWFs Conserve program works to ensure the future of Texas incredible fish and wildlife resources and the habitats they rely on. From restoring a sea of grasslands across West Texas to researching the recolonization of black bears in West Texas, TPWF is conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas acre-by acre, species-by-species. In partnership with the Oaks and Prairies Joint Venture, TPWD, and private landowners, TPWF continues its work to restore and enhance grassland habitat in Texas and Oklahoma through the Grassland Restoration Incentive Program by implementing on-the-ground habitat restoration projects that directly combat the issues involved in the decline of grassland species, with the restoration of over 4,200 acres underway since the beginning of 2022 and a total of over 120,000 acres restored since the program launched in 2013. A similar project in the Pecos River watershed has restored over 16,000 acres of grassland habitat since its launch in 2021. In 2022, TPWF partnered with Borderlands Research Institute at Sul Ross State University on a research and outreach program to investigate the natural recolonization of black bears in West Texas and implement management strategy to foster their coexistence with humans. During the 2022 field season, the team successfully captured and collared nine black bears (eight males and one female) in just two months; researchers began collecting data from the movement of nine radio collared bears over a range of more than 4,600 square milesan area the team anticipates will grow in the future; and team members worked with TPWD biologists to relocate and monitor a problem bear that had been getting into Terlingua residents trash. The bear was relocated to Black Gap WMA for monitoring. Additionally, in 2022, TPWF continued a multi-year, multi-million-dollar fundraising campaign to fund capital improvements to the Edwin L. Cox, Jr., Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center (TFFC) in Athens, Texas. Opened in 1996, TFFC is a 106-acre educational facility and freshwater fish hatchery, including a laboratory, over 300,000 gallons of indoor and outdoor aquariums, and 45 ponds covering 37 acres. TFFC serves more than 35,000 visitors each year, many of whom visit with school and youth group field trips. Preparing for the next 25 years, the capital improvement plan includes refurbishing the popular Dive Theater and its dive tank, renovating four large outdoor aquaria exhibits, installing four new outdoor fisheries tanks, and enhancing the indoor exhibits and overall visitor experience.