Texas has more than its share of hunting ranches, from scrappy mom-and-pop operations to enormous luxury resorts. Catering to deep-pocketed sportsmen and women who lust after big bucks with trophy antlers, the average hunting outfit would just as soon avoid scrutiny from the non-hunting world, particularly animal-rights activists. And then
Exotic species brought to Texas from Africa and Asia fared poorly in freezing temperatures.
With its distinctive, raucous call, the chachalaca is often heard in South Texas—but good luck spotting one.
From the Big Bend to East Texas, the Panhandle to the Rio Grande Valley, Texas ranches have been transformed in recent decades by the proliferation of exotic game animals, many of them rare and endangered in their native habitats. With the rise of “Texotics” has come an army of
Jesse Griffiths goes hog wild to reinvent a favorite childhood meal.
Sprawling ranches. Rare animals. Rich folks with guns. Welcome to the state’s booming business of stalking wildlife from around the globe.
Crested caracaras used to range no farther north than Texas’s southern tip, but now they’re expanding across the state—perhaps because of climate change and habitat loss.
Affordable private places to pitch your tent when public parks aren’t an option.
Living hard and free, cedar choppers clashed with respectable townsfolk in the mid-20th century.
From the Estelline spring in the Panhandle and the foot of the Guadalupe Mountains to the hypersaline lakes in the Rio Grande Valley, the common mineral is all around us.
Not everyone in San Augustine is on board for local artist Gary Brewer's perplexing project, which is three stories high and counting.
In the aftermath of tragedy, members of the Caddo Nation are drawing on their culture and traditions to help restore Caddo Mounds State Historic Site.
The Redfish Wars changed Texas fishing. A fight over flounder could be next.
Texas offers some of the most-diverse fishing in the country—from stalking monster sharks on Padre Island to fly-fishing from a kayak on the remote Pecos River. And for three months, I got to try it all.
Here are four essential items to get off dry land and into a kayak.
The state has spent more than a century building up a world-class fishery, with some unintended consequences.
Tips from Texans who trap, kill, and study wild pigs.
A visit to the Zwolle Tamale Fiesta and Los Adaes, where our state’s Spanish colonial roots live on just across the Sabine River.
Ray Gene, proprietor of Longview’s singular It’ll Do Tavern, passed away last weekend.
Deer season is almost upon us, but don’t fret if you don’t have a lease. Here are four public places that welcome hunters.
Once widely hunted in Texas, the beloved game birds have been dwindling in number in recent decades. But a West Texas hunter and professor believes he’s found a way to save them.
These creatures—some creepy crawlers, some fearsome beasts, some microscopic threats—can and will kill you, maybe.
Twenty years ago my hometown made national headlines when the local college staged an internationally acclaimed play about gay men and the AIDS crisis. The people I grew up with are still feeling the aftershocks.
A revitalized downtown and a new network of hiking, biking, and paddling trails add to the appeal of this border town by the beach.
Trent Lesikar’s ongoing ‘The Shape of Texas’ series teases out connections between the state’s different eras.
Fifty years after humans first walked on the moon, you too can play astronaut for a day.
The invasive species hitches rides on contaminated boats from one body of water to the next.
Austin rockers Montopolis will premiere The Living Coast—an audiovisual homage to the Texas Gulf Coast—on August 2 in Austin.
Descendants of slaves who escaped across the southern border observe Texas’s emancipation holiday with their own unique traditions.
A constitutional amendment on the ballot in November aims to shore up funding for Texas’s system of state parks and historic sites.
Former train corridors pave the way for exploration and quietude through seven counties in this rural part of the state.
Where to find wide-open skies—or a big telescope—if you live in the big city or in the eastern half of the state.
With the state’s four highest peaks, Guadalupe Mountains National Park offers incredible vistas and rewarding trails, which you just might have mostly to yourself.
Friday night, lights out.
Getting a head in Pittsburg.
It’s time to go or get off the pot.
Lyndon B. Johnson conducted the nation's affairs under the Cabinet Oak. But is the three-hundred-year-old tree a goner?
A new documentary follows the lives of the 94 bayou folk, retirees, and reputed outlaws in the village of Uncertain.
Wes Ferguson has paddled and walked all 87 miles of one of the Hill Country’s most prized waterways. In this exclusive excerpt from The Blanco River, he uncovers a few of its natural secrets.
How long it will take the dreaded emerald ash borers to fully establish themselves in Texas? And how many native ash trees will they decimate?
A year ago, the Blanco River overran its banks and devastated Hays County—just as a handful of government officials had predicted decades ago.
