S2E7: Watersheds: The Dying Fields

Written and Produced by Alyssa Lucas. In today's episode, we discuss the overlooked ecosystem of seagrass beds and their importance to the coast. You'll hear about how these grasses have been depleted and restored along with how freshwater inflow comes into play.

In today's episode, we dive into current restoration efforts for Baffin Bay, Texas. You'll hear more about the work being done to fix the bay's water quality issues as well as restore Baffin's unique serpulid worm reefs. Worms!

This is Part Two of our look into Baffin Bay water quality. As we learned last time, this Texas bay is known for its trophy trout, but many of the longtime anglers and guides had witnessed the decline of the bay over the last few decades. In Baffin, poor water quality affected seagrasses, shrimp and crabs, and of course those gigantic seatrout. What’s even more interesting was that one of the longtime fisherman, Scott Murray, became determined to do something about it. So we’re going to hear more about the citizen science project they created and the scientific discoveries they found. These citizen scientists are a great example of watershed citizenship.

In this episode, we're traveling down the coast to Baffin Bay, Texas, and hearing about the lived experiences of trophy trout anglers from the Baffin Bay Oral History Project. This fishing community bears witness to a fishery that has declined over many years. But their special ties to the bay, as we’ll see, prompted many to get involved in restoration efforts.

Today on The Gulf Podcast, whooping cranes go to court! We live on the coast so we are downstream from everything. That also means that we’re downstream from many of the water management decisions that affect us. These decisions can impact everyone who relies on estuaries and freshwater inflow, including whooping cranes. And in times of drought, things can get bad. In this episode, we’re going to dive into a court case that’s about a decade old called The Aransas Project v. Bryan Shaw, et al. It’s an interesting case that connected water and whooping crane populations—and showed how many people on the coast stepped up to help the cranes.

On this episode of The Gulf Podcast, I've enlisted Dr. Dale Gawlik, Endowed Chair for Conservation and Biodiversity at the Harte Research Institute, so we can learn more about one of North America's largest and rarest birds, the whooping crane. These unique and beautiful birds spend the winter in the bays and estuaries of the mid-Texas Coast and rely on fresh water coming to the coast.

In the first episode of the new season, I'll explain why Texas is currently in a watershed moment for reexamining coastal water issues. The episode gives a brief overview of Texas water policy and science and provides background for the rest of the "Watersheds" series. Our guide in this episode is Dr. Paul Montagna, Chair for HydroEcology at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies. Paul has spent his career working on coastal issues and is currently finishing a new book entitled Freshwater Inflow to Texas Bays and Estuaries.

In season two, we have a new series--Watersheds--devoted entirely to exploring the master variable for coastal ecosystems: freshwater inflow. New episodes out monthly, starting in mid-March!

Our third episode explores a sense of place by focusing on a Gulf Coast favorite, Padre Island National Seashore. And we’re going hear from folks who work really hard to keep it trash free. The episode will cover a brief history of the creation of the seashore as well as scenes from the 25th annual Billy Sandifer Big Shell Beach Cleanup, one of the largest beach cleanups in North America. This episode originally aired in March 2020 and was reproduced in February 2023.

This episode brings you into the world of Henry "Hank" Compton. After working as a marine biologist in the Gulf of Mexico, Hank's life slowly spiraled into tragedy. He died alone in his apartment. After his death, there was a chance discovery of his artwork and writings on the deep sea. This work was brought to life by Dr. David McKee, a retired marine biology professor at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and the author of the book Fire in the Sea: Bioluminescence and Henry Compton's Art of the Deep. This episode originally aired in April 2020 and was revised and reproduced in February 2023.