Texas Hunting Leases

AUSTIN — The Texas Animal Health Commission, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department have issued a summer and early fall alert for ranchers, hunters and anyone who may be going afield in Texas. One case of anthrax has been confirmed in a white-tailed deer herd on a game ranch in Uvalde County, which is in an area of South Texas endemic to anthrax. Although humans are also susceptible, no cases have been reported to date, and simple precautions can effectively reduce the risks of humans contracting the disease.

Anthrax is a bacterial disease of sheep, goats, cattle, horses, deer and other animals. The bacteria which cause anthrax can remain dormant in the soil for many years. A period of drought followed by heavy rains frequently occurs just before the appearance of anthrax in livestock and deer. Animals that eat the rapidly growing grasses also consume soil that contains the bacteria. Currently, soil conditions are right to produce more outbreaks around the triangular geographic area bounded by Uvalde, Ozona and Eagle Pass, which cover portions of Crockett, Val Verde, Sutton, Edwards, Kinney, and Maverick counties.

Transmission of anthrax to humans can occur whether an affected animal is alive or has died from the disease. Simple precautions can greatly reduce the risk of contracting the disease from these animals. Carcasses of dead livestock and deer should not be cut open to allow blood to escape. Under no circumstances should the hide, hair, skulls, or horns of an animal suspected of having anthrax be salvaged, nor should the meat of these animals be eaten.

During an anthrax outbreak, hunters in the affected areas are discouraged from taking feral hogs because they consume the meat of dead animals and could be carrying the bacteria. Fortunately, by the time deer hunting season starts, cool weather usually puts an end to the often seasonal anthrax outbreak. At minimum, hunters should harvest only healthy-looking deer and other hoof stock. If a deer has ingested anthrax bacteria, within hours, it will stagger, tremble or exhibit convulsions, and death is inevitable.

When an area experiences an anthrax outbreak, ranchers should wear long sleeves and gloves when handling or vaccinating livestock. Afterward, good sanitation measures should be followed, including hand washing and laundering of clothing. This aids in preventing contact with the anthrax bacteria which may have been picked up on the hides of animals. Do not pick up bones, horns or shed antlers, and pets and children should be kept away from dead animals. Healthy animals also should be moved from a contaminated pasture during an outbreak, but must remain on the premise and not hauled down the road to another pasture.

To prevent additional soil contamination, Texas Animal Health Commission regulations require that anthrax affected animal carcasses must be burned, until thoroughly consumed, along with any associated bedding and manure. This practice prevents wild pigs, coyotes, dogs or other predators from dragging carcasses (and the accompanying anthrax bacteria) from one pasture to another, and spilling out the anthrax spores.

TAHC regulations also require that livestock  on infected premises be quarantined for at least 10 days after all the livestock have been vaccinated against the disease. During this time, anthrax-exposed animals may still die from the disease, while healthy, vaccinated animals will develop immunity.

All anthrax cases — suspected or laboratory confirmed — must be reported to the TAHC. The regulatory agency operates a 24-hour hotline at               1-800-550-8242         1-800-550-8242, with state or federal regulatory veterinarians available at all times to take calls and work with private veterinary practitioners and producers.

More information about anthrax is available by contacting the TPWD Wildlife Division at (512) 389-4505, The Texas Animal Health Commission at  (512) 719-0710, or the Zoonosis Control Division, Texas Department of State Health Services, at  (512) 458-7255.

Every year, around mid-August, I walk out into the garage and dig around for a small object that brings me hours of relaxation.  Somewhere behind the bird seed, next to the car wash stuff it sits waiting for this day to arrive.   I grab it and its two identical friends and head into the house.  Taking a measuring cup, I mix three parts water to one part sugar and begin to fill each one of them up with the irresistable atractant.  My Humingbird feeders are a very simple design with a bug moat and 6 small feeder ports drilled into a red snap-on lid.  I hang them in succession along the fence outside of the kitchen window so that every morning I have chance at having my moring coffee with them.   You can almost set your watch by their arrival each year to our back yard.  When they come, you  most certainly know that flights of early Teal are arriving in coastal rice fields as well.

The annual migration of North American birds, in general, lines up from small to large.  With the arrival of my aerobatic friends, I know that it will soon be time to go afield to see the first waterfowl to arrive on the scence -Teal ducks or “rice rockets” as hunters call them here.  This honor bestowed on them because they love the rice fields to feed and frolic in as they make their way south.  While scouting our duck leases this past weekend, we saw dozens of them in tight formation buzzing over uncut rice looking for a place to land.  Although out of their winter plumage, their flights are as beautiful and exilerationg as watching an air show with the Navy’s Blue Angels as the main event.

When I got home tonight, I looked out the window and there was our first visitor.  A beautiful male ruby-throated humming bird perched on a feeder, nourishing itself for its annual pilgrimage to the southern tropics.  Now, its time to go out in the garage and dig around for those small decoys in the bag somewhere in the back.  Their time will soon be here. 

Note: Learn more about Texas Hummingbirds here!