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. 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. TPWF successfully raised $10 million in private dollars to pair with public funding and broke ground on the vertical construction of visitor facilities in late 2023. Construction is expected to take 18 months to complete, and Palo Pinto Mountains State Park is expected to open sometime in 2025. 2023 also marked the centennial anniversary of Texas State Parks, and TPWF successfully mobilized a grassroots campaign that raised $1.9 million to deliver significant visitor experience enhancements and priority-need equipment to all 88 parks, ranging from wildlife and dark sky viewing equipment, ADA-accessible kayak launches and courtesy docks, and mountain bike repair stations to kid-friendly archery equipment, beach and playground shade structures, and off-road search and rescue vehicles. Projects are currently underway and expected to be completed in 2024. 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. To date, Stewards of the Wild has engaged more than 150 participants in mentored hunting and fishing experiences. The program also provides select advisory council members with opportunities to further develop their leadership skills as fellows to the TPWF Board of Trustees. TPWF has also encouraged the pursuit of conservation careers by launching the Women in Conservation Science Scholarship in 2021 and partnering with the Coastal Conservation Association to fund 38 Coastal Game Warden Internship Program interns since 2016.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundations (TPWF) Steward program is focused on priority land conservation acquisitions. Since its inception in 1991, TPWF has helped conserve over 200,000 acres of land across Texas. Recent land conservation projects have included adding 497 acres to TPWDs Matagorda Peninsula Coastal Management Area, which now consists of over 6,700 acres and serves as a sea turtle nesting location and a nesting and foraging site for a variety of wading birds and shorebirds. The peninsula is also an important part of storm surge mitigation, protecting East Matagorda Bay and the mainland. TPWF also helped create the iconic 17,351-acre Powderhorn Wildlife Management Area and future state park on Matagorda Bay, one of Texas most exciting land conservation projects to date. The Powderhorn acquisition was a multi-partner effort that conserved valuable fish and wildlife habitat and created access to undeveloped, restored coastal prairie, fulfilling a promise made to the people of Texas nearly 10 years ago. In 2023, TPWF helped acquire the 2,178-acre Burns Ranch, a former TPWD Lone Star Land Stewards Award winner. Now protected as TPWDs Paul and Toni Burns Wildlife Management Area, this rare property of the Cross Timbers and Plains Ecological Region provides essential grassland habitat and sustenance for hundreds of native and migratory species. In all, TPWF helped permanently protect 10,738 acres worth over $60 million in 2023, including nine land acquisitions totaling 9,835 acres. Through TPWFs Buffer Lands Incentive Program, which supports partner land trusts that acquire conservation easements across the state, TPWF supported four conservation easement projects totaling 903 acres in 2023. In a state with limited protected public and private lands, TPWFs Steward program is critical to meet the needs of a growing population while simultaneously protecting the wild things and wild places that make Texas special. Our land acquisition program touches every corner of the state, helping steward Texas open spaces for the next generation.

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 natural 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 7,500 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 multi-year research and outreach program to investigate the natural recolonization of black bears in West Texas, including bear population numbers, habitat needs, behaviors, and movements. Preliminary findings through 2023 already indicate potential for a stable, native black bear population recovery in the future. This research will also serve as the foundation for science-based strategies to effectively manage the return of native bears and educational outreach programs to foster their coexistence with area landowners and residents. Additionally, in 2023, TPWF continued a multi-year, multi-million-dollar campaign to fund $4.6 million in 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. Construction preparation began in fall 2023, and TPWF is currently overseeing management of the renovations, which 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. TFFCs fish hatcheries and its ShareLunker citizen-science trophy bass research and breeding program will remain operational during the renovation, and the facility is slated to reopen to the public in spring 2025.