Texas Monthly: My Quest to Find the Elusive, Two-Foot-Long Texas Alligator Lizard
On a warm spring morning a few years ago, I ducked into a rock shelter on Austin’s Barton Creek Greenbelt while taking a walk. Sunlight cut through the live oaks and painted the walls of the limestone canyons. Only as I stood up to leave did I see it: a slender, serpentine lizard sitting on a ledge, its armored back banded in orange and white, its narrow face and glittering eyes set in an expression of faint distaste.
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Texas roads now featuring lovestruck turtles ignoring traffic laws
As spring blankets Texas in a wave of blooming wildflowers and budding trees, another seasonal sign is quietly creeping across roads and highways: turtles on the move. Oblivious to traffic and speed limits, these slow but determined travelers are part of a natural rhythm tied to the warmer months: a journey driven by the urge to mate and nest.
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New Groundbreaking Conservation: Successful Reintroduction of the Reticulated Flatwood Salamander
One of the world’s largest and most experienced providers of timberland investment services recently achieved a groundbreaking conservation milestone by successfully reintroducing the federally listed reticulated flatwood salamander (Ambystoma bishopi) in collaboration with multiple agencies and partners.
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Texas A&M AgriLife fills critical knowledge gaps on javelina
NRI researchers are laying the foundation for the science-based management and conservation of javelinas, or collared peccary. Until recently, this native species seemed overshadowed by other Texas wildlife and plagued by misconceptions.
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The Winter Sourcebook Volume VI is here
Directly from the field, the Winter 2025 NRI Sourcebook is here. Each season, we publish a digital collection of recently published peer-reviewed scientific publications, research reports, and resources developed to support the improvement of conservation, natural resource management, and private land stewardship. This collection is for you, your partners and community to use and share where we can collaborate to create resiliency.
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Updates and trends in landowner demographics and their relationship with wildlife management
NRI released a new Texas Landowner Survey (TLS) report, Updates and Trends in Landowners Demographics and their Relationship with Wildlife Management, with fresh insights on the Texas general population, land and wildlife stewardship and tax incentives. Most significantly, the report reveals that 49 percent of Texas operations are managed by just two landowners, which will be a critical consideration related to intergenerational land transfers, an aging landowner population and the potential for loss of land management knowledge and experience.
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Scientist Q&A with Dr. Sarah Turner
Like many scientists, Research Assistant Professor Dr. Sarah Turner, took a circuitous route to find her passion. We had the opportunity to sit down with her to learn more about her academic background—brimming with brilliant mentors, interesting internships and lots of challenging work—her education, fieldwork, and her future endeavors as she moves into an instructional role at Texas A&M.
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The Fall Sourcebook is Here
Directly from the field, the Fall 2024 NRI Sourcebook is here. Each year, we publish a digital collection of recently published peer-reviewed scientific publications, research reports, and resources developed to support the improvement of conservation, natural resource management, and private land stewardship. This collection is for you, your partners and community to use and share where we can collaborate to create resiliency.
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Millions of bats call Texas home sweet home
Everything is indeed bigger in Texas, including its bat colonies. Texas has 33 species of bats, more than any other state, and is home to the largest bat colony in the world.
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Bighorn Sheep Relocation in Sonora, Mexico
Mountain sheep (Ovis spp.) abundance across North America has declined more than 60% from historic times due to factors such as overgrazing, habitat fragmentation, and disease transmission from domestic livestock and exotic species.
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NRI assists GOHUNT and NDOW team with a bighorn sheep research
NRI's Marcus Blum joins the Nevada Department of Wildlife to capture data to assess sheep health and determine if the sheep are sick with pneumonia.
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Texas A&M AgriLife wildlife data included in global study
As activity-related restrictions were implemented across the globe in early 2020 to slow the spread of COVID-19 — a period of reduced human movement referred to by researchers as the “anthropause” — biologists saw an extraordinary opportunity for research.
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AgriLife Today: Wild turkeys are strutting into spring
Collaborative conservation efforts, research aim to bolster wild turkey populations across Texas
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The Summer Sourcebook is here
Directly from the field, the Summer 2023 NRI Sourcebook is here. Each season, we publish a digital collection of recently published peer-reviewed scientific publications, research reports, and resources developed to support the improvement of conservation, natural resource management, and private land stewardship. This collection is for you, your partners and community to use and share where we can collaborate to create resiliency.
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Results of statewide landowner survey published
AgriLife Today — The stewards of Texas’ working lands have spoken. The data collected by the survey aids natural resource agencies in developing and implementing educational resources and programming to benefit landowners and the landscapes they steward.
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Read the Statewide Texas Landowner Survey results
Researchers from the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute (NRI), in collaboration with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and agricultural and natural resource professionals distributed the survey to better understand rural landowners and their land management objectives, challenges, concerns, and preferences.
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Last week to take the Texas Landowner Survey
With the help of our partners in February, NRI released the 2022 Landowner Survey for landowners who own or operate private working lands in Texas. This voluntary questionnaire serves to gather information on the needs, preferences, concerns, and challenges regarding the everyday management of property that landowners face. The survey is set to close on May 13!
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NRI releases Texas landowner survey to examine status of working lands and needs of land managers
NRI's Texas Land Trends program released the 2022 Landowner Survey for landowners who own or operate private working lands in Texas. This voluntary questionnaire serves to gather information on the needs, preferences, concerns, and challenges regarding the everyday management of property that landowners face.
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Texas A&M bird collection influences the future of ornithology, conservation
More than 27,000 birds that span state, nation and globe used for research, education
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Helping Texas’ unique snakes through research
NRI as a unit of Texas A&M AgriLife, has been doing a lot of work researching three unique snakes; the Louisiana pinesnake, the eastern indigo and the massasauga rattlesnake.
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The Spring 2021 Sourcebook: Volume 2, Issue 1
From the field to your desk, the Spring 2021 NRI Sourcebook is here — a digital collection complete with the recently accepted peer-reviewed scientific publications, research reports, and resources developed to support the improvement of conservation, natural resource management and private land stewardship.
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Fossilized tracks show earliest known evidence of mammals at the seashore
Researchers report the discovery of several sets of fossilized tracks, likely from the brown bear-sized Coryphodon, that represent the earliest known evidence of mammals gathering near an ocean.
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Fall 2020 Sourcebook: Volume 1, Issue 2
The Fall 2020 NRI Sourcebook (V1:I2) is here, a digital collection complete with the recently published peer-reviewed scientific publications, research reports, and resources developed to support the improvement of conservation, natural resource management and private land stewardship.
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Researchers identify unique populations of dunes sagebrush lizard
Study raises concern of land fragmentation, population vulnerability of endemic lizard
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Summer 2020 Sourcebook: Volume 1, Issue 1
The Summer 2020 NRI Sourcebook (V1:I1) is here, a digital collection complete with the recently published peer-reviewed scientific publications, research reports, and resources developed to support the improvement of conservation, natural resource management and private land stewardship.
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