Wade Steffen, a champion steer wrestler, was arrested after TSA officials found $337,000 and photos of rhino horns in his carry-on luggage at the Los Angeles airport.
A selection of our favorite bird-related stories from around the state.
Meet Wildthing, the unlikely Bison housepet of an eccentric family in Quinlan.
Four new 65-cent stamps pay homage to the dogs of war.
Cinders, a wire-haired dachshund from Corpus Christi, was one of seven finalists for the Best in Show title.
Passengers snapped pictures and took video of a pair of Magellanic penguins toddling down an airplane's aisle on a recent flight from Orlando to New York.
A Louisianan couple and their four Capuchin monkeys are on the lam in East Texas, avoiding authorities who may want to take away the animals.
Lara Logan joins a hunt for scimitar horned oryx in the Hill Country.
An Australian scientist honored the singer by dubbing the "all time diva of flies" Scaptia beyonceae. Surprisingly, this isn't the only insect named after a Texan.
The San Antonio Rampage, the city's minor league hockey team, will attempt to set the Guinness World Record for most dogs at a sporting event.
Two reindeer ran out onto I-45 during rush hour in Webster.
Thirty feral hogs escaped from their pens at a local meatpacking plant and led animal control officers on a frantic chase.
The Houston Chronicle offers a glimpse into the how the Houston Zoo’s industrial kitchen operates.
Willie Nelson’s classic album Red Headed Stranger gets “The Kitten Covers” treatment, but which other Texas albums deserve to be profiled?
Texas has a serious problem with feral hogs, which cause more than $400 million in damage every year. But it can be solved—one delicious bite at a time.
My short, unfulfilling, momentarily terrifying career as a rattlesnake racer.
Garza was born and raised in Webb County. For the past fifteen years, he has been an inspector with the Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program, a mounted patrol started by the USDA in 1906.A tick rider patrols the border, the Rio Grande River, on horseback every day. Our job is
What to do in ten more worst-case scenarios, from getting bitten by a brown recluse to getting caught in a dust storm.
To experience the majesty and peril of the desert on my own terms, I spent a week alone in the Solitario, the most remote area of Big Bend Ranch State Park. I confronted my darkest fears—and made small talk with an insect.
Once upon a time I thought I wanted to be a bullfighter (and not the kind that wears sequined tights). A legendary cowboy named Leon Coffee and an animal named Pretty Boy changed my mind.
Where to see the painted bunting, the summer tanager, and other feathered friends: A guide to the best birding spots in Texas.
Nothing riles a Texan like a rattlesnake, whose aggression and toxicity account for endless horror stories. Some of them are even true.
A bat man builds a super cave (holy conservation!).
A swimming swine’s squeally big show comes to an end.
One of the country’s top photographers traveled around his home state to capture these stunning portraits of exotic animals on display.
At First the Count Was Ten U.S. Customs Service agents in Eagle Pass searched the driver and the passenger of a pickup and found eight live snakes wrapped in socks and pantyhose inside the two men’s underwear. Pass the Boysenberry Syrup or Start Saying Your Prayers Charles Bryant of Missouri
In a remote Mexican bay, you can touch a forty-ton gray, watch her lovely, enormous baby rub playfully against your boat, and ponder the mysteries of the natural world.
Eight indigenous authors, nine native critters: A bookish look at the wildest, woolliest creatures in Texas history.
Want to see millions of migrating monarchs on their annual winter getaway? Wing on down to Mexico.
When mountain lions started turning up, the Sierra Club said, “Save them!” Ranchers said, “No way!”
Five years ago, rabies was rare in South Texas. Now nearly three hundred animals have died and the epidemic is not abating.
Deaths among rare rhinos leave scientists scratching their heads.
Up close and personal with our expanding entomological universe.
A third-generation rancher rebuilds his spread by just saying no to cattle.
Getting up close and personal with the endangered whooping crane.
Black bears have returned to Big Bend National Park, and our author is determined to find one.
One man’s quest to clear the reputation of an animal maligned.
These seven creatures might be piggy-backed, whale-boned, dog-toothed, goat-eed, elephant-eared, turtle-necked, and bull-headed, but they’re stars just the same.
Snapping turtles are cantankerous, grotesque, and savage. And those are just a few of the reasons I like them.
The troubled Parks and Wildlife Department is supposed to protect the state’s natural resources. Instead, it protects its friends and, above all, itself.
The saga of a man and his helpful insects illustrates the age-old battle between visionaries and bureaucrats.
Fire ants are on a relentless march across Texas, maiming, devouring, and stinging the living daylights out of everything in their path. We’ve tried to stop them, and it has only made them stronger.
Marine scientists have struggled for ten years to establish a new colony of ridley sea turtles on South Padre Islands. All their efforts may have been in vain.
The prairie chickens in Texas’ vanishing grasslands are booming and boyish.
Experts predict the first swarms could cross the border next year. What happens then to Texas’ multimillion-dollar honey industry is anybody’s guess.
Three shark attacks on the Texas coast this summer are making swimmers edgy and chambers of commerce ask one question: what’s going on out there?
Baby Calves, children, even the agriculture commissioner: no one is safe from this tiny deamon.
They told me alligators don’t eat people. But when I found myself face to face with one in a dark East Texas swamp, I hoped they’d told him too.
You don’t have to go to the country or the zoo to see wild animals; there are lizards in downtown buildings, gators in the creeks, and deer in the parking lots.
It’s everybody’s favorite reptile, and it’s disappearing from Texas.
