Fiscal Notes, March 2004

Texas wildlife refuges bring cash to communities
Protecting Texas

In a state as big and naturally diverse as Texas, it's only a matter of time before an animal like the Texas kangaroo rat or a plant like the black lace cactus meets progress head on in a struggle for space.
Sometimes the wildlife wins, and that can turn out to be a plus for the local economy. That's the case at the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in South Texas, one of 17 national wildlife refuges in Texas, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFW).
Nationally, refuges encompass more than 100 million acres of land. More than 500,000 of those acres are in Texas, the 11th-highest total of refuge land in the U.S., according to USFW. Alaska leads the nation with more than 76 million acres.
A September 2003, USFW report--Banking on Nature, The Economic Benefits of National Wildlife Refuges Visitation to Local Communities--examined the impact of refuges on local communities. The study included Laguna Atascosa.
Window to the past
Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge covers about 88,000 acres mostly in Cameron County but also in neighboring Willacy County. Tourists spent more than $3.6 million at the refuge in fiscal 2002. Visitors from outside the area spent nearly $2.4 million, according to the report.
Laguna Atascosa Manager John Wallace said most visitors are not from the area.
"What's perplexing to me is that we attract a lot of winter Texans that come through just looking for something to do," he said. "But you run into local people all the time that when you tell them you work at Laguna, they say, 'Oh really? I've never been there.'"
The tourists are a boon to the area, however, and helped create 75 jobs, according to USFW. Wallace says he's not surprised.
"Ecotourism has just increased so much," he said. "[It's] all over, but especially here in the Lower Rio Grande Valley area. These areas are just kind of like windows to what it used to look like in the past."
A population increase in Cameron County of more than 12 percent and an employment increase of more than 20 percent between 1995 and 2001 helped boost the number of visitors, according to the report. In 2002, the park recorded 146,000 "visitor days," which includes each time a person visits to watch wildlife or hike on the property.
For the birds
Wallace said the popularity of the refuge, as well as increasing tourist traffic to the nearby Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, has officials eyeing additional land. The three refuges in South Texas now include nearly 200,000 acres.
Laguna Atascosa, which is at the southern tip of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Coastal Birding Trail, is a hotspot for bird-watching enthusiasts. Nine of the state's 17 national refuges are within the Coastal Birding Trail.
"The refuges in South Texas are real popular," Wallace said. "It's primarily because of bird watching. There are quite a few birds that are only found in the U.S. [here] in South Texas."
But there's more to Laguna Atascosa than bird watching. The refuge is home to deer, javelina, bobcats and the ocelot, a "big cat" about twice the size of a house cat. While ocelots survive in plentiful numbers in parts of South America, there are likely less than 100 in Texas today. About 30 are believed to prowl Laguna Atascosa, Wallace said.
The ocelot, like many of Texas' 53 endangered or threatened animals, is running out of habitat due to increased commercial development.
Birding is also the biggest draw at Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, located in the Texas Panhandle, according to refuge manager Harold Beierman.
"Our busy time is when we have large numbers of crane during the winter months," said Beierman. While the refuge does not keep statistics on tourists' economic impact, he said the refuge averages about 12,000 visitors a year, with a higher percentage coming when wintering birds arrive.
Muleshoe Chamber of Commerce Manager Jan Thompson said the refuge is well known and is one of the main attractions the chamber promotes to tourists.
"It's really a beautiful place," she said. "People say that there's nothing out there, but I tell them that's not true. There's no buildings or anything, but there's plenty that's out there. It's a refuge and it looks the way it should."
Economic shot
Hunters provide an economic boost in many rural communities and are a much sought-after brand of tourist. Hunting is allowed on some refuge lands in Texas, including Laguna Atascosa.
Wallace said Laguna Atascosa had long been the only wildlife refuge to allow deer hunting on public land, though it is now allowed at others like the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge northwest of Austin. White-tailed deer hunting is available at Laguna Atascosa for a $40 fee for hunters with the appropriate Texas hunting license. In fiscal 2002, hunters at Texas refuges contributed more than $48,000 to the economy, according to the USFW report.
Laguna Atascosa is particularly popular with bow hunters. Of the 810 hunters issued permits for the refuge in 2003, 600 were bow hunters, Wallace said.
Suburban creep
While subdivisions and shopping centers creep further and further from urban centers, rural lands that have long been home to wildlife are often swallowed up by development. Within these suburban expansions, many refuges are looking to purchase additional land in an effort to keep up with burgeoning human populations and protect natural habitat for the land's native, animal residents.
Such is the case for the Balcones Canyonlands near Austin. The refuge is home to the black-capped vireo and the golden-cheeked warbler, both endangered birds. Balcones' manager Debra Holley said an infrared visitor counter monitors only one of three public-use areas in the refuge. That counter logs an average of about 5,000 visitors a year, she said.
Birders tend to spend about $200 per person, per trip, according to Ted Eubanks, founder of Fermata Inc., an Austin-based nature tourism development firm. While specific economic impact studies for avitourism in the Austin area have not been done, the results of numerous other studies have had similar findings.
The Balcones refuge has more than 20,000 acres under its watch, but Balcones' real estate specialist Nancy Unbehaun said the refuge would like to have close to 46,000 of the almost 80,000 acres that fall within the area.
Unbehaun heads up the effort to attain lands for the refuge and its inhabitants by seeking landowners in the area who are willing to sell to the refuge.
Unbehaun said Balcones' lands are acquired with government grants and appropriations from Congress.
"We're looking only for willing sellers," she said. "It goes a little at a time and people's circumstances change from year to year. Someone who doesn't want to sell now may want to move in the future."

Clint Shields