TPWD Texas Parks & Wildlife TV Program (weekly schedule and show for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department) has recently been updated.

Texas Game Warden Vance Wallace was recognized as the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies "Officer of the Year" today.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission on Jan. 21 authorized the department to seek public comment on a suite of proposed wildlife and hunting related regulations that would expand special buck antler restrictions and liberalize antlerless harvest opportunities in dozens of counties, part of a broader move to transition away from political boundaries and toward biologically-based communities for managing deer populations.

A public scoping meeting to gather additional feedback will be held in Grayson County on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009 at Grayson County College’s Center for Work Place Learning Auditorium near Sherman. The auditorium will open at 6 p.m. and the public meeting will begin at 7 p.m.

Game wardens in the Special Operations Unit of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Law Enforcement Division have arrested six men and executed two search warrants as part of Operation Texas Shuffle, a year-long investigation into the black market deer trade in Texas.
“Our focus here is stopping two main areas of criminal activity: deer being brought illegally across state lines, and wild deer being illegally laundered into deer breeding facilities,” said Col. Pete Flores, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department law enforcement director.

The following are excerpts from recent Texas Parks and Wildlife Department law enforcement reports.

A Texas man and a Minnesota man were both sentenced to federal prison terms yesterday for illegally transporting white-tailed deer across state lines.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has transitioned away from political boundaries for the purpose of monitoring white-tailed deer populations and toward biologically-based communities or Resource Management Units (RMUs).

In a briefing of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission’s Regulations Committee, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department unveiled an extensive suite of potential regulation changes in deer harvest throughout much of the state. The department will be gathering public input on the possible proposals during the next couple of months and present to the commission in January a comprehensive set of proposals.

The Nature Conservancy of Texas has purchased the 7,000-acre Fresno Ranch in far West Texas and plans to transfer it to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for the purchase price of about $2.6 million. The deal culminates 20 years of work to remove the largest remaining in-holding inside Texas’ biggest state park, expands hiking and public access, and protects desert springs, Rio Grande river frontage, diverse wildlife and rich cultural resources.