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In this powerful call to action, conservationist and environmental lawyer Jim Blackburn offers an unconventional yet feasible plan to protect the Texas coast. The coast is in danger of being damaged beyond repair due to the gradual starvation of freshwater inflows to its bays, the fragmentation of large tracts of land, and general public neglect. Most importantly, it is threatened by our denial that the coast faces major threats and that its long-term health provides significant economic benefits. To save coastal resources, a successful plan needs to address the realities of our current world. The challenge is to sustain an economy that creates optimism and entrepreneurship while considering finite natural resources. In other words, a successful plan to save the Texas coast needs to be about making money. Whether visiting with farmers and ranchers or oil and chemical producers, Blackburn recognizes that when talking about the natural environment in monetary terms, people listen. Many of the services we get from the coast are beginning to be studied for their dollar values, a trend that might offer Texas farms and ranches the potential for cash flow, which may in turn alter conservation practices throughout Texas and the United States. Money alone cannot be the only motivation for caring about the Texas coast, though. Blackburn encourages Texans to get to know this landscape better. Beautifully illustrated and accessibly written, A Texan Plan for the Texas Coast weaves together a challenging but promising plan to protect the coast through economic motivation, thoughtful litigation, informed appreciation, and simple affection for the beauty and life found on the Texas coast.
With strong personal and professional ties to the Gulf of Mexico, marine geologist John B. Anderson has spent two decades studying the Texas coastline and continental shelf. In this book, he sets out to answer fundamental questions that are frequently asked about the coast—how it evolved; how it operates; how natural processes affect it and why it is ever changing; and, finally, how human development can be managed to help preserve it. The book provides an amply illustrated look at ocean waves and currents, beach formation and erosion, barrier island evolution, hurricanes, and sea level changes. With an abundance of visual material—including aerial photos, historical maps, simple figures, and satellite images—the author presents a lively, interesting lesson in coastal geography that readers will remember and appreciate the next time they are at the beach and want to know: What happens to the sand that erodes from our beaches? Can beach erosion be stopped—and should we try? How much sand will be needed to stabilize our beaches? Does a hurricane have any positive impacts? How much development can the coast withstand? This entertaining and instructive book provides authoritative answers to these and other questions that are essential to our understanding of coastal change.
The middle Texas coast, known locally as the Coast Bend, is an area filled with fascinating stories. From as early as the days of de Vaca and La Salle, the Coastal Bend has been a site of early exploration, bloody conflicts, legendary shipwrecks and even a buried treasure or two. However, much of the true history has remained unknown, misunderstood and even hidden. For years, local historian C. Herndon Williams has shared his fascinating discoveries of the area's early stories through his weekly column, "Coastal Bend Chronicle." Now he has selected some of his favorites in Texas Gulf Coast Stories. Join Williams as he explores the days of early settlement and European contact, Karankawa and Tonkawa legends and the Coastal Bend's tallest of tall tales.
“Few experiences compare with navigating a sea kayak through a large sandy bay lined with oyster-shell beaches, past golden sand dunes into rough ocean waters, then surfing back onto a wind-swept beach at sunset.”—from the Introduction Half of the nearly 400-mile Texas coastline is flanked by barrier islands. Behind them, large and small bays shelter estuarine marshes, oyster-reef communities, and sea grass meadows that teem with wildlife, creating a bird watcher's and angler's paradise. For an intimate encounter with these natural treasures, no other water craft can compare to a kayak. Veteran kayaker John Whorff’s Kayaking the Texas Coast is an essential guide for beginning and experienced kayakers to the many miles of shoreline that surround the shallow bays, lagoons, and islands of the Texas coast. Novices will appreciate this book’s detailed information about where to paddle and camp, what to see, and where to obtain additional information about safety and route planning. Accomplished kayakers will enjoy Whorff’s enticing route descriptions and other pertinent details on paddling the Texas coastline. Opening with an extended introductory text that covers kayaks and equipment, safety considerations and emergencies, camping dos and don’ts, and helpful resources, Kayaking the Texas Coast also lists useful websites and guidebooks. In the main portion of the text, the coast is organized into ten destinations, from the Galveston Bay complex in the north to Boca Chica State Park in the south. For each of these destinations, Whorff provides information on navigational aids, planning considerations, accommodations, and directions to launch sites before describing various paddling routes within each destination—around seventy routes in all. Each route is ranked for difficulty as “beginner,” “intermediate,” or “advanced.” Detailed maps and vivid photographs by the author complete the package. "Kayaking the Texas Coast is your must-have guidebook to the coastline and bays of the Lone Star State. Many miles of sea kayaking adventure are described, along with maps and discussion of the natural world encountered along the way. My copy will be riding in car and kayak with me. I look forward to seeing with my own eyes what the author has described and mapped."-- Natalie Wiest, founder and director, Galveston Bay Information
The Flyfishers Guide to the Texas Gulf Coast is the definitive guide book on fishing the Texas Coast. Interest in fishing the gulf coast is exploding and the Flyfisher’s Guide to the Texas Gulf Coast gives you all the information you need for success. Nationally known author and saltwater flyfisher, Colby Sorrells, covers every aspect of saltwater fishing for the entire Texas Coast. He covers the fish, the flies, light tackle, tactics, and the best seasons. Colby covers the entire coast in detail with information on each specific area. He lists the fly shops, outfitters, charter captains, marinas, accommodations, and much more. There are 60 detailed maps showing every bay, cover, harbor, reef, island, park, marina, and boat launch. There are also seasonal fishing charts showing the peak seasons for each species of fish. This book is essential reading for everyone who fishes the great Texas Gulf Coast.
Written for biology students, teachers, nature lovers, amateur naturalists, conservation workers, and parks and wildlife personnel, this up-to-date, easy-to-use guide describes the marine plants of the Gulf of Mexico coast. The author’s photographs accompany the updated identification keys, which are also visually oriented and simple to use. Veteran botanist and educator Roy L. Lehman describes the plants in four major sections, covering the common shoreline plants, seagrasses, mangroves, and marine algae (red, brown, and green seaweeds). Each section begins with an introduction that gives an overview of the plant group and includes information on the important traits and terminology used for identification. A simple key to the family or order directs the reader to the appropriate section, where the text is arranged alphabetically by family and then by genus and species. Each genus is illustrated by high quality photographs that include a close-up of each plant and images of its reproductive structures. Marine Plants of the Texas Coast collects these unique species for the first time in a single volume. As coastal issues, such as hurricane preparedness, beach erosion, wetland mitigation, freshwater inflows, and more, remain in the forefront of public concern, this botanical reference should find a permanent place on the bookshelves of scientists, policy makers, and citizens alike.
Describes where, when and how to fly fish the Texas coast.
Renowned fishing guide Barney Farley worked the Texas coastal waters out of Port Aransas for more than half a century. In these stories and reflections, Farley imparts a lifetime of knowledge about fish_silver trout, sand trout, speckled trout, redfish, ling, catfish, jack, kingfish, you name it_and gives advice about how to fish, where to fish, and when to fish. Perhaps no one could chronicle the changes in sport and commercial fishing along the Central Texas Coast more ably and more passionately than Farley. When he came to Texas in 1910, he reported that he could get in a rowboat and using only a push pole, make his way "to the fishing grounds and catch a hundred pounds or more of trout and redfish" in a few hours. A couple of years later, the shrimp trawlers arrived. As they plied the Gulf in increasing numbers, they depleted the shrimp populations in the bays, and Farley watched the fish move farther and farther offshore, following their ever more elusive food source. From his perspective in the mid1960s, Farley was not satisfied simply to lament the disappearance of onceabundant species. He also strongly voiced his views on the need for conservation. Many of the problems he identified are still with us, and some of the solutions he prescribed have since been adopted. This book is both an appealing reminiscence and a cautionary tale. Anyone who cares about fishing and the health of the Gulf's waters will find an authoritative and completely engaging voice in Barney Farley.
A Birder's Guide to the Texas Coast will be indispensable as your field guide to one of the world's premier birding destinations. The Texas coast is home to an amazing number of migrating and wintering birds, as well as many specialty resident and nesting species. The habitat diversity ranges from the Pineywoods to the Gulf prairies, from the coastal wetlands to the South Texas subtropics. The spring migration of neotropical birds along the coast is one of North America's most remarkable birding spectacles. And the region is host to some of the nation's largest congregations of herons, egrets, rails, shorebirds, gulls, and terns at any season. A Birder's Guide to the Texas Coast includes Species Accounts for over 170 Texas specialties, and more than 70 new sites, for a total of over 200 birding stops, as well as bar-graphs for 388 regularly occurring Texas Coast species.