Animal Writes
Eight indigenous authors, nine native critters: A bookish look at the wildest, woolliest creatures in Texas history.
Stories and updates on some of the state’s many animals
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.
The city boy moved to the country and life was good. And then he bought four pigs.
They’re ugly little things, but you’ve got to respect them.
Now is the time to unlearn everything you’ve ever heard about snakebite.
Zoos are fine for people, but they make animals go crackers.
Fighting over a black neighborhood in Austin; corralling the irascible Bull of the Brazos; fussing and feuding with the DAR; monkeying around with the San Antonio Zoo.
Horses are expensive, finicky, and a pain to groom. They are also irresistible.
Cockfighting is probably cruel and certainly illegal, which are only two reasons that attract its aficionados.
A good country dog is loyal, obedient, and knows the difference between a chicken and a possum.
Once you let a goat in your life, you can never get it out.
Living in the country is all you ever wanted—and probably more than you bargained for.
Especially not in Sweetwater: the score at last count was Humans 10,000, Rattlers 0.
The cockroach. What else?
People bring their gangly quarter horse colts to Bubba Werner to transform into winners. Now and again, he does.
Can Bubbles find happiness in a 30-foot tank?
How the Dallas SPCA got itself indicted for cruelty to animals, and other shaggy dog stories.
Ringside as two dogs—father and son—fight to the death.
Cuddling up to a thousand pounds of ravenous hunger.
A guide to Texas zoos: living like an animal is better than it’s ever been.
America is alive and well at the Houston Livestock Show.
Forget your Dallas cowboys and your Houston Astros. Texas’ real champions count birds once a year at freeport. They’re not bird watchers, they’re birders. And therein lies a tail.