Ellen Buchanan
Related Audio Excerpts
American Black Bear | Duration: 00:03:14
Logging
Reel 4209
TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEWEE: Ellen Buchanan
INTERVIEWER: David Todd
DATE: July 29, 2024
LOCATION: Silsbee, Texas
SOURCE MEDIA: M4A, MP3 audio files
TRANSCRIPTION: Trint, David Todd
REEL: 4209
FILE: AmericanBlackBear_Buchanan_Ellen_SilsbeeTX_29July2024_Reel4209.mp3
David Todd [00:00:09] Okay.
Ellen Buchanan [00:00:09] Okay.
David Todd [00:00:11] We are recording now, and I wanted to wish you a very good morning. I’m David Todd. I have the privilege of being here with Ellen Buchanan, and with her permission, we plan on recording this interview for research and educational work on behalf of a non-profit group called the Conservation History Association of Texas, and for a book and a website for Texas A&M University Press, and finally for an archive at the Briscoe Center for American History, which is located at the University of Texas at Austin.
David Todd [00:00:43] And before we went a further, I wanted to emphasize that she would have all rights to use the recording as she sees fit. And, of course, I wanted to ask her if recording this is acceptable to her.
Ellen Buchanan [00:00:56] It is acceptable to me.
David Todd [00:00:57] Great. Okay. Well, let’s get started.
David Todd [00:01:01] It is Monday, July 29th, 2024. It’s about 10:15 a.m. Central Time. My name is David Todd. I am representing the Conservation History Association of Texas, and I am in Austin, and we are conducting a remote interview with Ellen Buchanan, who is based in the Silsbee, Texas area.
David Todd [00:01:23] Ms Buchanan has an illustrious, full history in conservation in the state. She worked for Texas Parks and Wildlife for 32 years, serving at Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Park, and at Martin Dies State Park, and as regional director for Texas’ Northeast region of state parks. Currently, she serves as president of the Big Thicket Natural Heritage Trust, as chair of the Golden Triangle Sierra Club, and as a trustee on the Ex Com of the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club, which is the Texas chapter, and as a member of the Texas Water Development Board’s Neches River Flood Planning Group, and as a member of the Big Thicket Biosphere Reserve board.
David Todd [00:02:17] To give, I guess a little bit of background, she was also president at one time of the Big Thicket Association and a board member of the Hardin County Historical Commission.
David Todd [00:02:29] Today we’ll be focusing a lot on her work with black bears and her interest in those in East Texas. And so, I thought it’d be especially relevant to mention that she is chair of the Texas Black Bear Alliance.
David Todd [00:02:42] So, today we’ll be talking about Miss Buchanan’s life and career and conservation work to date, and especially focus on what she can tell us about the black bear, you know, the once and future animal of East Texas. And so, I look forward to hearing about that and many other things.
David Todd [00:03:02] So, thank you very much, Ellen.
Ellen Buchanan [00:03:06] I’m glad to be here.
David Todd [00:03:07] Well, good. Well, let’s start with your early days. Could you point to any people or events during your childhood that might have gotten you interested in wildlife and just nature in general?
Ellen Buchanan [00:03:22] I think I was as a child of three that always wanted to be outdoors. I think you’re born with that, I guess. And then, I had the opportunity through both sides of my family, my daddy’s side and my mother’s side, to be doing outdoor activities all the time. My mother grew up in Kountze, Texas. My grandparents still live there.
Ellen Buchanan [00:03:52] My grandpa had property, raised cows, had horses. So, from a young age, we were riding horses. And we’re out in the pasture in the woods. And in those days, there weren’t necessarily fences.
Ellen Buchanan [00:04:07] I also had the opportunity on my daddy’s side of the family that the Buchanan Farms were in Washington County, on the Brazos River. And so, we went out to the farm a lot. And as kids, they used to put us on the horses and just let us go. And I guess that they figured that, I mean, I was under nine because they sold the farm when I was nine years old, so, yeah, less than nine. And they would put us on the horses and let us go. And I’m assuming they just, if the horses came back with no riders that they would come and look for us. But I mean, as a child, to be independent and to be out. I mean, it was a farm. Crops were growing. At the same time, there were birds, wildlife, all the good things, and my cousins, which was the fabulous part about that.
Ellen Buchanan [00:05:07] So, I had lots of opportunities to be out as a child growing up. I could ride my bicycle anywhere. You know, your parents didn’t know where you were in those days: you were just out, out and about. So, I think because I was always in nature, I was very aware of it. And I think it was innate for me that I loved nature and I loved to be outdoors.
David Todd [00:05:37] You know, it’s interesting. It sounds like, particularly through your father’s side of your family. You not only had, I guess, exposure to the outdoors, but it was kind of a working landscape. I mean, you’re talking about probably cotton farming, produce farming – a little different from just the maybe the woods of Kountze. Is that fair to say?
Ellen Buchanan [00:06:03] That’s fair to say. Cotton, maize, corn. Yes. That’s how my uncle made his living. And then, family members were a part of the farm also. And they had cows.
David Todd [00:06:22] But did you feel like it was, the kind of an agricultural landscape where there were still hedgerows and gullies and arroyos and, you know, backwoods where there was some intact places that you could visit?
Ellen Buchanan [00:06:42] Oh, absolutely. Because it was right on the Brazos River. And so, you know, there were natural ponds and lakes and back sloughs and not like back sloughs over here.
Ellen Buchanan [00:06:54] But we were all over the place. That was the first time I found out about, you know, artesian wells, artesian water, you know, as a child – free-flowing, free-flowing wells because it was right on the Brazos River.
Ellen Buchanan [00:07:14] And then when they sold the farm when I was about nine, then I also had some other aunts and uncles that had a farm out in Washington County, that had cows, growing grass, but not necessarily crops. And, you know, those hills of Washington County and again, being able to ride horses all over the place, fishing in New Year Creek. You may be familiar with New Year Creek runs through that property.
Ellen Buchanan [00:07:46] That’s another thing. My daddy, the uncles, were always fishing. Another story: when my daddy got back from World War Two. He was older when he went to World War Two, and he had a law practice here in Silsbee, and they said that he would work enough during the week to make enough money, to then close the office down and go fishing. So, and as kids, we went fishing with him. I remember one time letting his minnows go inadvertently, not on purpose. But that was on Village Creek.
Ellen Buchanan [00:08:20] So, we were, you know, it seems that we were always outside in nature.
David Todd [00:08:28] So, are it are there any stories that sort of pop into your head when you picture yourself, with a fishing rod or on a horse or on a bike? That you might be able to share with us.
[00:08:44] I don’t know, it was just it was, you know, for me, it was almost every day. Right? And I loved baseball, too. So I was always, you know, with the kids in the neighborhood playing baseball or doing something. But, I know I can just see that in my mind. I can see that in Washington County. I can see it in Hardin County of, you know, being on the horses with my grandpa, or with the cousins. And just being out. Absolutely.
David Todd [00:09:17] Okay.
David Todd [00:09:19] Well, it sounds like you spent a lot of time outdoors, but was there any sort of opportunity to, you know, watch a TV screen or go to a movie theater or crack a book or, you know, open a magazine and sort of see what the media might be telling you about the natural world.
Ellen Buchanan [00:09:42] So, David, I’m, I’m old. So, we did not have a TV when I was a kid. I remember when we got a TV, you know, black and white with rabbit ears and aluminum foil, right, to get it to come in better.
Ellen Buchanan [00:09:59] So, as a child, my hero was Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Yes. That was my hero – the Lone Ranger. And I always pulled for the Indians too. I think that that was kind of that I was born with that, that I understood who the underdogs were, and I pulled for the underdogs. I didn’t think that was right. So Roy Rogers – absolutely. I have a life-sized poster of Roy Rogers and Trigger.
David Todd [00:10:39] And any magazines that might have shown up at your house or books that were on the shelf that appealed to you?
Ellen Buchanan [00:10:47] I read all of the books. I mean, they’re still in there, I believe, on the bookshelf. I’ll have to think – see, I just said that I was old – but it was of all the explorers. That’s what I was reading about, was explorers, you know, Lewis and Clark, you know, all of these folks that’s … I liked the adventure. I liked the stories of what people were, yes, doing. You know, the first people to go places in the United States, the first white people to go places in the United States.
David Todd [00:11:28] They’re stories of discovery sand adventure?
Ellen Buchanan [00:11:32] Stories of discovery and adventure. Yes.
Ellen Buchanan [00:11:36] Got it.
Ellen Buchanan [00:11:37] I missed out on reading some other things because that’s what I was reading, but that’s what I liked.
David Todd [00:11:43] Okay.
David Todd [00:11:45] So, another place that some people point to as influential is school. And I was wondering if you had any classmates or teachers, either in grade school, or I believe you went to Texas A&M, during college, that might have had a big impact on your way of thinking about the natural world and bears in particular, perhaps?
Ellen Buchanan [00:12:09] I really don’t think so in grade school or high school, except that I did like geography a whole lot, you know, and finding out what was going on in the rest of the United States and in other countries.
Ellen Buchanan [00:12:24] And at A&M, I majored in recreation and parks. And one of the things, especially in their early years, you know, you took courses in range science. She took courses in wildlife. You took courses in forestry. So, you had that whole background. And so, that opened up different avenues of thinking there.
Ellen Buchanan [00:12:47] And I really thought I was going to go into recreation, not necessarily parks, but recreation. One of the things I didn’t tell you is I did play tennis, and I did coach tennis at A&M after I graduated.
Ellen Buchanan [00:13:04] And then parks became my thing.
David Todd [00:13:07] Your thing!
Ellen Buchanan [00:13:09] I mean, we, in college, we did go to different parks – state parks and national parks. And then, once I left A&M, stopped coaching tennis, then I took a trip. I had a friend that lived in California. So, I took a trip by myself. Went to the Grand Canyon, Zion, then out to California – Kings Canyon, Sequoia – all those good places. And I came back and worked here in Silsbee and then I applied for Texas Parks and Wildlife.
David Todd [00:13:50] Well, let’s talk about that. I think sometimes that first break that you get in a career, that first position, that first job, can be, you know, a wonderful open door. And I’m wondering, how you got started at Parks and Wildlife.
Ellen Buchanan [00:14:10] The first job I ever applied for and I interviewed for, was the assistant superintendent at Martin Dies, Jr. State Park. Because I was in Silsbee. That’s in Jasper, Jasper County. Just another history tidbit for you. My great-great-great grandfather, John Bevil, was the first settler and founded Jasper County. Bevilport. So, I am tied to the area.
Ellen Buchanan [00:14:39] So, I applied for Martin Dies. I did not get the position. And then the job came open at Monument Hill. At the time, it was just Monument Hill. Kreiche Brewery: they had the property, getting it opened. So, I took that, I applied for and got that position.
David Todd [00:15:01] And was it the sort of job where, you were managing a facility or trying to interpret a site or maybe a mix of both?
Ellen Buchanan [00:15:09] A mix of both. When, when I arrived, I was the only employee, and we were open seven days a week. It’s like, oh, you know, and no one says, you know, you can be open five days a week. But yeah, we were open seven days a week. I finally had to call and say, like, “You know, could you send somebody so I could take a day off?”.
Ellen Buchanan [00:15:33] But, so it was just Monument Hill, you know, a small site, with a Texas heroes where the folks from the Dawson and Mier expeditions – 1842, 1843 – are buried there on a beautiful overlook on the Colorado River, on the bluff. Absolutely gorgeous. A 1936 Centennial monument was built right there at the tomb. And then Heinrich Kreische had bought the property (see if this stuff is all in my head still) in 1855, I believe, after they were buried. So he owned the property where the Texas heroes were buried, built his home there, and then ran one of the first commercial breweries in Texas.
Ellen Buchanan [00:16:23] So when I arrived, they had not incorporated the site yet, had not stabilized the house or the brewery. So, that was that was, needless to say, I enjoy history. I thought it was great. And so, your question was, yes, it was up to me to manage the site, to maintain the site and then to interpret the site.
Ellen Buchanan [00:16:48] And we had very little staff. I did get to hire folks. Okay. I did get to hire folks, not many. And so we, we did know, that the only way we were going to be able to give tours of the house and brewery when that came on is to have a docent organization. And so started a docent organization, which was really fun. I mean, La Grange, you consider a town of 3000 people, and I think we, by the time I left, we probably had 20 docents, which to me is huge for a small town. And it was fun. They were fabulous.
Ellen Buchanan [00:17:28] And that way we could take people to the house and the brewery. We had Christmas events. They still have the Christmas events, and they still have Texas Heroes Day in September to mark anniversaries of the Dawson and Mier expeditions.
David Todd [00:17:52] It’s great. You know, some of these sites have got such deep roots, not just, you know, in the buildings that are there – the house, the brewery – but also in the stories of the people who once lived here and developed the state. It’s nice that you could share that with people.
Ellen Buchanan [00:18:12] Yes. And the reason they were buried on the bluff is that some folks from Fayette County were on the Dawson and the Mier expeditions, and so that’s why they were buried on the bluff. Yes.
David Todd [00:18:23] Okay.
David Todd [00:18:24] Well, let’s jump into stories about black bear. Do you remember the first time you might have seen a black bear?
Ellen Buchanan [00:18:37] You know, I don’t know what year it was. I was in a national park, and I can’t even tell you which national park it was at the time. But that was the first time. Needless to say, I did not see one in Texas, even though I don’t know why I missed one when they did have a bear down at a filling station in Silsbee. I don’t know why I didn’t see that bear, but I’m glad I didn’t for some reason. But I saw it in a national park and I guess Colorado, probably.
David Todd [00:19:08] You know, just to sort of give us a start for those of us that that aren’t very familiar with black bears, could you give us a brief outline of the life history of a typical black bear and the ecological niche that the animal fills?
Ellen Buchanan [00:19:26] I will try. I am not a biologist, not a biologist. But, of course, black bear roamed all through Texas, and I believe, and don’t get my history right, but I believe that there were four species of black bear in in Texas. And ours was luteolus, which is Louisiana black bear over here on the east side of Texas. Then, of course, you’ve got the Mexican black bear and the American black bear, and you know, I think the New Mexico black bear.
Ellen Buchanan [00:20:04] And they were everywhere when you look at how many bear were killed, you know, as documented, that were killed over here in southeast Texas. Then they were a prevalent part of the ecosystem and the biodiversity of the Big Thicket area.
Ellen Buchanan [00:20:29] Male bears are the ones that usually are out and about. Female bears, especially when they have cubs, then they stay closer to home. And female bears will usually have two cubs. They have those in the wintertime in their den.
Ellen Buchanan [00:20:46] Us being in Texas, and especially Southeast Texas, and not necessarily like the northern parts of the United States, where the bears more go into, in the winter time, what’s called a torpor state, you know, where they’re just slower. But for down here, when we’ve had some of these warm winters, it doesn’t mean that they would have, you know, denned necessarily at all, because especially with our mast crop from oak trees, there’s plenty of food, throughout the winter for a bear.
Ellen Buchanan [00:21:20] And, of course, they spend their summertime and fall eating, to go into torpor. And then for the females who have their cubs during the winter time.
Ellen Buchanan [00:21:36] And they do eat. They’re mostly, you know, vegetarians. They will eat other. But, if you look at the especially the, the Big Thicket, The Land of Bears and Honey, and we just talked about the mast crop, but the number of berries that we have – just plenty for the bears to eat. They would not have gone without, I guess, except in lean years or drought years, maybe.
Ellen Buchanan [00:22:02] But you’ve probably seen this following the drought, then I’ve never seen so many acorns. I think that all the trees were, well, acorns and berries: I think everything was trying to proliferate themselves after going through a drought.
Ellen Buchanan [00:22:24] What else can I tell you about bears? That was kind of short.
David Todd [00:22:29] Well, I think one thing that would be interesting is that it seems like bears have this general lifestyle of being a vegetarian and, you know, picking up acorns and pecans and, you know, mast of various kinds, berries and so on. But they have this reputation of ferocity. And I was wondering if there’s much of that that you think is true.
Ellen Buchanan [00:22:58] You know, with a black bear, I don’t think so. Now, any mother, whether it’s a bear or a mountain lion or a human being, is going to protect their young. Right? And so, if they feel threatened or if they feel that their young is threatened, then there could be some ferocity there.
Ellen Buchanan [00:23:17] I have heard, I have seen pictures, of bear and feral hogs that they will, they will go after feral hogs. And I don’t know if that’s again, because, you know, you can get a group of hogs, 20 or 30 hogs, that could do damage to a bear cub. Right? And then those hogs are eating the same food, a lot of the same foods, that a bear eats.
Ellen Buchanan [00:23:47] But most of the time with a black bear, if you stay away from them, if you let them do their business, and you do your business, then they’re not going to bother you.
Ellen Buchanan [00:23:59] I will say this that, Texas Black Bear Alliance, we have some good friends that they live here in Texas, always have. And he got a job in Georgia. It’s kind of temporary. So, they bought a house in Georgia next to a state park, and then a wildlife management area close by. And so they moved into bear territory. They bought a house.
Ellen Buchanan [00:24:27] Their whole goal in moving there was that they were moving into bear territory. That’s where the bears live. They were just coming in. They did everything that they could do to learn how to live with those bears. And to not interfere with their lifestyle. And if you ever want to, you need to talk to them. I’ll give you their contact info.
Ellen Buchanan [00:24:48] And that’s exactly what they’ve done, is they let the bears do their thing, and they tried to have no impact at all on those bears.
Ellen Buchanan [00:25:00] So, again, we moved into their habitat. They did not move into our habitat.
David Todd [00:25:10] So, I guess there’s a possibility of strategies to coexist with bears, that their behavior is something that we can learn to accommodate?
Ellen Buchanan [00:25:22] Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Ellen Buchanan [00:25:29] And I know we’ll get into this, but when you look into the bears that have come into the Big Bend region, South Llano region, they really weren’t expecting them, but with the drought in Mexico, then a lot of the bears started moving north to find food and water.
Ellen Buchanan [00:25:49] And our problem out there, and our problem anywhere that bears are going to come back in, is you have to have a plan, you have to educate. And that’s what Texas Black Bear Alliance is about – educating.
Ellen Buchanan [00:26:05] You need to make changes with how you work your garbage, right? And that’s a problem out in West Texas, not having the bear-resistant garbage cans and all. Because just like us, we’re going to go to the easiest place we can find food, whether that’s a drive-in, you know, if there’s nothing in the refrigerator, then that’s where we’re going to go.
Ellen Buchanan [00:26:26] So if a bear, you know, is walking through town and that garbage can is there, and they smell it, then that’s exactly where they’re going to go.
Ellen Buchanan [00:26:34] So, and they’re smart, right? Bears are smart.
Ellen Buchanan [00:26:42] So, that’s a part of our mission, is educating folks about bear. If we were to ever have them come back into Southeast Texas, that’s probably the main mission.
David Todd [00:26:55] Okay. Well, that’s good, maybe, you know, to try to minimize any conflicts.
David Todd [00:27:02] Well, let’s talk about the fact that they’re not there now, you know, in large numbers or breeding, as I understand it. But they were common in the past. And I think you mentioned that, that was the fact that there was a good deal of bear kills over the years. And I was curious if you could talk a little bit of what the past populations of bears in East Texas might have been like, where they were, you know, how they behaved.
Ellen Buchanan [00:27:38] Surely. I mean, if you look at, and the Big Thicket’s called the Big Thicket for a reason, right? A lot of it was open in your longleaf pine savannahs that you had open areas. And then when you get into the bottom lands – Pine Island Bayou, Village Creek, the Neches River, then thicker. And, of course, bears like thick where they can hide.
Ellen Buchanan [00:28:05] Of course they really weren’t, before Europeans came, they weren’t really having to hide from anyone.
Ellen Buchanan [00:28:13] So, you know, there was a population, a healthy population, in the Big Thicket area until Europeans came. And roads started to being built. So, that was fragmentation of the resource.
Ellen Buchanan [00:28:32] When you look at oil and gas that came in, and that was early 1900s, you can just imagine of being a wild animal and having all of this activity. One of the biggest, and I guess best, bear hunting areas was where the Lance Rosier Unit is now and is the triangle between Kountze, Sour Lake and Saratoga. And Little Pine Island Bayou runs through that area.
Ellen Buchanan [00:29:04] And it is a thick area. It is a beautiful area. And with your cypress down at the water. Your oaks, your palmetto. Absolutely gorgeous area and a good area for bears to hide.
Ellen Buchanan [00:29:23] Well, now there are roads that surround that triangle.
Ellen Buchanan [00:29:30] And it became sport, just like the buffalo, passenger pigeon, anything else there, became a sport.
Ellen Buchanan [00:29:41] Our indigenous peoples used buffalo, bear, for their sustenance and their shelters. We in the beginning used deer, buffalo, bear for our sustenance. And then it became sport, in how many bear can you kill in a year?
Ellen Buchanan [00:30:08] And so, through habitat loss and hunting, then luteolus is no longer in the Big Thicket area.
David Todd [00:30:27] So, I guess you’re pointing to overhunting and then infrastructure, roads, oil fields. Is that kind of the extent of what you think were the big factors in the bear’s decline in East Texas?
Ellen Buchanan [00:30:46] Yes. And just, everything that we brought to that, I mean, clearing for electrical lines, pipelines, all of the infrastructure involved with us being able to live.
Ellen Buchanan [00:31:04] But I think hunting was the big thing. I mean, you have to look at the Big Thicket area. You have the Trinity River, the Neches River, and then the Sabine River. So, we are prime for bear habitat and we’re still prime for bear habitat.
Ellen Buchanan [00:31:28] And I think that you had asked too, about, you know, how do bear fit in. I’m not sure how they exactly made the ecosystem work and the biodiversity. But it’s just like bringing wolves back to Yellowstone, and how that started to turn, you know, where you had your natural predator.
Ellen Buchanan [00:31:50] And so, not exactly sure. And we’ll see in Big Bend even. And of course, it’s a small population now, of how that may change the ecosystem back to what it was. But until we can see it working, and, you know, scientific data, then we wouldn’t know.
Ellen Buchanan [00:32:09] What are we missing in that key? What, what is missing in the key now of the biodiversity and the ecosystem?
David Todd [00:32:18] Yeah, I guess it’s one of those situations where you don’t know what you don’t know. You know, we came along so late to really document the role of bears that maybe it’s all somewhat of a mystery.
David Todd [00:32:34] So, just to make sure I have a full picture here. Overhunting, I guess, was one issue. You’ve mentioned power lines, pipelines. Timber cutting, you know, that seems like pretty major, I think, in East Texas.
Ellen Buchanan [00:32:55] Let me go into, let me go into timber cutting. Yes. You know, you had the timber barons that came in – John Henry Kirby, others -and they started on one end of the state and just started moving. And they cut down everything in their path.
Ellen Buchanan [00:33:18] As I understand, in the beginning, they just didn’t have saws big enough at the mills to be able to mill the timber. And so, some of the larger trees were spared. But then, you know, you can always build a bigger saw blade, right?
Ellen Buchanan [00:33:39] So, no vision for the future, which I worry about is the same thing that we have today. What is the vision for the future?
Ellen Buchanan [00:33:48] They would start, they had their lumber towns, their timber towns. Understand too, that these folks weren’t paid in dollars. They were paid in scrip, Kirby scrip. So, if you went to the store, if you went to the doctor, wherever you went, you paid in Kirby scrip – all these folks that worked in the mills.
Ellen Buchanan [00:34:11] Kirby Mill was right down from where I live. I walk past the old Kirby Mill every day. It was the largest mill in the world (and I know I’m getting off subject, but I’ll come back), largest, largest mill in the world, and it’s no longer there. As far as I know, Hardin County does not have a lumber mill here now.
Ellen Buchanan [00:34:32] So, they essentially marched across southeast Texas, cutting down pretty much everything in their path, except if it was too wet to get into, which, you know, saved a lot of timber.
Ellen Buchanan [00:34:48] And, of course, longleaf pine was the predominant pine in this area, as it was from Virginia all the way through southeast Texas. And there’s only 6% of that ecosystem now left.
Ellen Buchanan [00:35:04] Loblolly pine is a much faster growing tree. It’ll germinate on anything, whereas longleaf pine needs fire to come through. It needs bare ground for the seed to germinate, and then it takes a lot longer for it to grow. It stays in that grass stage for two to three years before it starts shooting up.
Ellen Buchanan [00:35:28] But most of your telephone poles, electric poles, are made out of longleaf pine because of the durability and the strength of longleaf pine.
Ellen Buchanan [00:35:39] And then that ecosystem that it sheltered, that it was a part of, with pine hill bluestem. And so, most of that is gone now.
Ellen Buchanan [00:35:54] A lot of folks are working on restoration of longleaf pine. The t-shirt I have on today is planting in the Big Thicket, where Big Thicket is working on restoring longleaf pine.
Ellen Buchanan [00:36:07] But, you know, the trees were cut down. And so, if the bears have no food or shelter, where are they supposed to be? And so, I think that they were, that’s why it was so easy, I believe, to kill the bears in what’s now the Lance Rosier Unit, because they were just pushed and pushed closer and closer to the rivers and creeks. That was their last bastion of, of survival.
David Todd [00:36:42] You know, it’s interesting you mentioned the creeks and these corridors along the creeks and rivers. What sort of impact do you think some of these reservoirs – I guess there are a number that have been built in East Texas and that have inundated some of those bottomlands. Do you think that that had an impact on the bears or not so much?
Ellen Buchanan [00:37:13] Oh, I’m sure. Again, you know, the science, the data, we don’t have. But when you take, especially so close together, Toledo Bend and then Sam Rayburn, Sam Rayburn, the largest lake in Texas -what, 150,000 acres, and that’s the Angelina River. Okay? And the Angelina is a tributary of the Neches River. Toledo Bend, when you take that much bottomland and inundate it. I believe that folks talk about that with the ivory-billed woodpecker, that you, you took all that habitat down because ivory-bill, it’s the bottomland that was their place that they stayed. And it’s gone. It’s now water.
Ellen Buchanan [00:38:01] We don’t know. I mean, if you look at Texas Forest Service, about ten years ago, excuse me, they did a study on the ecosystem services of timber, trees. And it’s in the billions of dollars because of the ecosystem services. Our trees provide clean water. They provide the quantity of water because those trees, their roots, they’re holding the water in the soil and then they are holding the water back. Even the, you know, the leaf structure, all of this, the flooding is not as bad.
Ellen Buchanan [00:38:45] And so, when we when we’ve cut down our trees, whether it be for a reservoir, a pipeline, a transmission line, a highway, then we’re losing those ecosystem services. And those are ecosystem services for all of Texans that are being lost. And we’re not gaining that back. We’re not gaining it back.
Ellen Buchanan [00:39:14] And we all know right now that water quality and water quantity are huge. Flooding is huge.
Ellen Buchanan [00:39:24] And so again, I talked about the vision for the future. We keep doing it to ourselves. And these transmission lines and these pipelines, because they have eminent domain, they’re able to take people’s land. They cut down the trees. They cannot be replanted. But all of us Texans are losing those ecosystem services.
Ellen Buchanan [00:39:48] When TXDOT comes in and puts in a road, we’re losing those ecosystem services. Do we all need transportation, yes, ways to get places?
Ellen Buchanan [00:40:02] But we need to think outside the box better. We need to think outside the box better with these pipelines and with these transmission lines of how can we do it better?
Ellen Buchanan [00:40:16] And I’ll just say this. We battle TXDOT all the time – Highway 69. The amount of soil that’s being eroded off of that project that’s going on right now is atrocious. Because they’re not following their 402, which is water quality plan.
Ellen Buchanan [00:40:36] And so, if you multiply that by what’s going on throughout the state and what they’re, what TXDOT’s plans are coming up, if that continues, then just the loss of soil.
Ellen Buchanan [00:40:51] And then for us tax payers, that’s always going to end up in the Neches River at the Port of Beaumont, which they’re spending millions of dollars right now to dredge the port.
Ellen Buchanan [00:41:03] So, taxpayers continue to pay. It’s circular.
Ellen Buchanan [00:41:08] We’re losing the ecosystem services of our forest. And then we pay because the Port of Beaumont is having to be dredged.
Ellen Buchanan [00:41:19] Because somebody is not doing their job. I don’t see the responsibility or the accountability. I don’t see the accountability on these large corporations.
Ellen Buchanan [00:41:33] Start preaching here, but the pipelines that are coming all the way from the Permian Basin to go down to Port Arthur LNG. There’s not many of us that are making any dollars off of that. And it’s supposed to be economic development, but I don’t, I don’t see that economic development for our area.
Ellen Buchanan [00:41:59] And when you look at downtown Port Arthur and downtown Beaumont, they’re essentially boarded up. Those communities are not seeing the economic development. And look at the unemployment rate for Jefferson County versus the rest of Texas.
Ellen Buchanan [00:42:15] And then we’re the cancer belt. We’re the sacrifice communities here for what’s going on.
Ellen Buchanan [00:42:24] But all Texans lose. We’re all losing on ecosystem services with a loss of clean water, quality of water and the addition of flooding.
David Todd [00:42:38] That’s interesting. I guess, for some of us, the bear is kind of an entry point to concerns about clearcutting or dam construction or pipeline building, but it sounds like there’s a larger kind of frame to this, that it involves ecosystem services and costs that aren’t borne by the people that are making the money from this or the decisionmakers.
Ellen Buchanan [00:43:10] Yeah. So, what is our view, what’s our vision for Texas, what’s our vision for Texas, and really the whole United States? I mean, we’re a part of that.
Ellen Buchanan [00:43:21] The Big Thicket region is second only to the Amazon in biodiversity. So every time we put in a road, every time we put in a transmission line, a pipeline, anything that is fragmenting our resources, then we’re taking away from that biodiversity.
Ellen Buchanan [00:43:45] So, what is our vision? We haven’t done very well in the past. So, what do we look to the future? It’s not me. But it’s the grandchildren, it’s the great grandchildren and what’s to come.
Ellen Buchanan [00:44:00] We already see the heat. We already see the floods. We just had a hurricane early in the season, and it was a small hurricane, and it did billions of dollars worth of damage.
David Todd [00:44:17] Yeah. Okay.
Ellen Buchanan [00:44:18] So, what we’re trying to do over here is just save a little. If we can save a little bit, if we can open folks’ eyes. But I think that I think the bear is a representation of that. You know, we didn’t save the ivory-billed woodpecker. Too little, too late, right, to understand that it was going to be gone. How can you have millions if not billions of passenger pigeons and there’s not one left?
Ellen Buchanan [00:44:52] And there’s not that many luteolus left, even though it came off the endangered species list. But, you know, they’re in eastern Louisiana. And they’ve got a long way to come to get over here.
Ellen Buchanan [00:45:09] So it’s just, you know, if we want to keep wildlife, if we want to keep fisheries. What’s amazing is April, May, we had floods here. And Village Creek flooded twice over the Farm Road 327 and 418 bridges. And that doesn’t happen often, especially 327, and it happened within weeks of each other.
David Todd [00:45:44] So, you mentioned something in passing there that may take us to sort of the next chapter of this and that’s, that the federal government had listed luteolus, as the Louisiana black bear, as threatened, but then removed it in 2016. And I’m curious if, you know, as we start thinking about how these animals can be recovered, I gather the federal government thought that the bear was on a good route towards restoration, and so they took it off the threatened list. What is your view about why that happened?
Ellen Buchanan [00:46:24] Well, you know, that was U.S. Fish and Wildlife. And so, I’m assuming that they did the science and had the data, behind that, that the population was large enough to be able to do that.
Ellen Buchanan [00:46:36] I will tell you this, too, if you did not know, Louisiana just passed a bill for hunting black bear in Louisiana. So, they can only take ten there. It is limited. You know, you have to get a permit just like you would for anything. And I think the areas of hunting are limited.
Ellen Buchanan [00:47:01] What I think is sad about that is that, number one, I guess I’m glad that Louisiana science has showed that they have enough bears to hunt. So that’s a good thing. But it’s for the hunting purposes. It’s not for the purposes of restoring and bringing back the black bear.
Ellen Buchanan [00:47:25] Someone did ask me that at one of our meetings one time. Did I ever see a time where we would be able to hunt black bear in East Texas? And I said, my answer was “yes”. But it might take 2 to 300 years to get there, for us to have a sufficient population. But I’m going to be optimistic about that, that, yes, we would have the population, a large enough population in southeast Texas, Big Thicket area, to actually have a hunting season for black bear.
Ellen Buchanan [00:48:04] Would I have rathered that U.S. Fish and Wildlife kept them protected? Yes.
Ellen Buchanan [00:48:09] But I think there’s a lot of there’s a lot of pressure.
David Todd [00:48:13] Pressure of what kind?
Ellen Buchanan [00:48:14] Well, political pressure. It’s just like Louisiana did pass a bill for hunting, where ten bears can be taken. And that was, that was political pressure from hunters.
David Todd [00:48:35] So, I’ve seen that there are these sort of tantalizing visits from roaming male black bears in East Texas, that have occurred, I think, since the late 1970s. And I saw some photographs taken last year in Orange, Texas, of what looks like a bear, kind of distant and fuzzy, but it looked pretty convincing to me. I was wondering, A), do you think these sightings are real or fake or imagined? And if they are real, what those visits mean?
Ellen Buchanan [00:49:18] Most of the visits have been in Northeast Texas because the bears are coming from either Oklahoma, Arkansas or Louisiana, where there are more populations (really from Oklahoma and Arkansas). Mostly solitary bears, solitary male bears, excuse me, that are looking for a female or some more food. Not females.
Ellen Buchanan [00:49:43] And they have been captured. You know, a Class One sighting is where you have, like, a picture. With game cameras now, you can capture. And so, I had to laugh because there was one in Arp, you know, right below Tyler. And that’s when I was in Tyler. And I’m like, how did that bear get there? How did it cross the highways and get there?
Ellen Buchanan [00:50:05] Have not had that many sightings in Southeast Texas, especially Class One where there is a picture. The Orange picture – Adrian Van Dellen is convinced that it was a bear. That was during the drought, so there was no, even though you see palmettos in the picture, the ground was not wet. So, no prints. You know, if you could have gotten a print of the bear paw, then that would have been great.
Ellen Buchanan [00:50:37] Evidently, there was a shot in the distance and the bear ran.
Ellen Buchanan [00:50:45] So maybe so. But if it was, it was probably a solitary male. The only way for bears to come in and stay, just like that happened in Big Bend, is where you have a mother with cubs, that’s going to come in and stay. Then the males are going to come. Breeding is going to happen. You start increasing the population. So we would we would have to get a female to come over and stay for the population to start to grow by itself, natural recolonization.
Ellen Buchanan [00:51:21] Most of the bear are in eastern Louisiana. So, that means they have to come over a whole lot of water to get here.
Ellen Buchanan [00:51:32] Did that answer your question, David?
David Todd [00:51:34] Yes. That’s really helpful.
Ellen Buchanan [00:51:38] And really in northeast Texas, the bears haven’t stayed. They’ve come in and they leave because we’re not getting females.
David Todd [00:51:49] Well, so that sort of begs the question for me whether the females are not coming here because there’s adequate habitat where they are or there are, you know, breaks in the landscape where they can’t cross into Texas, or there’s just, you know, there’s not the kind of habitat in Texas that appeals to them.
Ellen Buchanan [00:52:10] Yeah. Yeah. You know, you would have to have, just like Mexico did where they had the drought. And so, the bears started coming into the Big Bend region. Then, Arkansas, Oklahoma would have to have a drought. There would have to be lack of food, and water, shelter, for the bears to start moving, you know, looking for food, water, shelter.
Ellen Buchanan [00:52:34] And so, that would have to happen here where really Louisiana’s weather and our weather is pretty much the same. So, I don’t see that happening.
Ellen Buchanan [00:52:45] And where they are, they have sufficient habitat. They have sufficient food, water shelter to stay.
Ellen Buchanan [00:52:59] As I understand, that if you were to … you know, Texas Parks and Wildlife would like to see natural recolonization and if not of, you know, reintroduction of bears. And Louisiana did this. In fact, they were trying to fill gaps on the eastern side of Louisiana. And so, they moved a mama and cubs. But If you move them, as I understand, if you move a mother with cubs, then she’s going to stay put because she’s going to take care of those cubs.
David Todd [00:53:39] You know, we’ve talked a little bit about Arkansas and Oklahoma and Louisiana, and it’s curious to me that it seems like, as I understand it, Arkansas and Louisiana did artificial reintroductions. They didn’t rely on this sort of natural recolonization that Texas seems to have faith in. Why do you think there’s that difference between, you know, these adjoining states?
Ellen Buchanan [00:54:14] So, I work for Parks and Wildlife. I worked for Parks before they got some money. Right? And I always said this, that, you know, there’s so much work to be done. Too much work to be done. Not enough people, enough time, not enough money. And same thing with wildlife.
Ellen Buchanan [00:54:30] And when you look at the mammals in Texas and the mammals that are threatened, they probably have ten, you know, different mammals that they’re working with. We talked about the political pressure. Everyone wants to save whatever’s in their area – a prairie dog, a ferret, a black bear.
Ellen Buchanan [00:54:54] And so there’s that pressure on Parks and Wildlife of, “What are you doing to protect this mammal or any species?”
Ellen Buchanan [00:55:10] As I spoke earlier, that West Texas was not ready for bears to come in. So, the first thing that would have to happen here is human dimension studies to find out what the folks of East Texas feel about bears coming back in, and then educating the public that this is what’s going to have to happen. Talking to all the garbage people that we now need to order bear-proof garbage cans, right? I mean, it’s the whole – anything and everything that you could think of that if we’re going to have bears here, what would happen?
Ellen Buchanan [00:55:51] We did have a biologist from Louisiana to talk to us. And when they were going to move those bears, just in Louisiana, to fill in gaps. They did 20 years of research, 20 years of research!
Ellen Buchanan [00:56:05] And so, Texas Parks and Wildlife Black Bear Management Plan does have a Goal F, which is, if appropriate, restore bears into suitable habitat. But then you have to go through things. And one of the things is, is doing a human dimensions survey, doing the education. But it would take us 20 years, if not longer, to go through these steps to get there.
Ellen Buchanan [00:56:37] So, I understand exactly where Texas Parks and Wildlife is coming from. You know, they’re not overrun with staff and they’re not overrun with budget, at all. And so, they have to prioritize. And it is politics. You know, you have legislators, you have a commission, you have everybody that’s, you know, trying to tell you what to do, while you’re just trying to do your job.
Ellen Buchanan [00:57:07] And they have a lot on their plate. I mean, Texas is one of the fastest growing state, if not, I guess, the fastest growing state in the United States, with all these folks coming in. And we’ve already talked about the effect that it’s having over here, and we’re a little bit slower. Well, I can imagine for the rest of the state.
Ellen Buchanan [00:57:25] So, that just puts more pressure on those wildlife biologists of “How do we manage this?”
Ellen Buchanan [00:57:32] So, I understand where they’re coming from.
Ellen Buchanan [00:57:37] At the same time, we want them to, “Let’s look at this.” We’re, as the Texas Black Bear Alliance, we’re here to help you with that. We can get grants. We can fund these human dimension studies.
Ellen Buchanan [00:57:51] One of the best things that’s ever happened in Texas. And this is through A&M and it’s the Texas Master Naturalists. And these folks love to educate. They love to educate. And so, we can come up with a black bear education program that we could actually take into the schools. And if you think about that, if you educated every fourth grader and it took us 20 years, then they’re going to be adults by the time we get this done.
Ellen Buchanan [00:58:21] So, but any change, you have to take it to the public to find out, you know, “What do you think about this? What are your worries about this? What do you think are the good things about this? Where would you like to see bear?”
Ellen Buchanan [00:58:43] Several years ago, a study was done by Kaminski on suitable habitat for bear in east, southeast Texas. And so, we do have that study. I don’t think that anything has changed there. We do have national forest. We have state forest. We have the Big Thicket National Preserve. We do have thousands, if not millions, of acres of suitable bear habitat.
Ellen Buchanan [00:59:11] But again, it goes back to it doesn’t mean that the bear’s going to stay, especially a male bear, where you put the bear. I think the females are less likely to be moving.
Ellen Buchanan [00:59:22] So, we need to do those human dimensions studies. Find out what the public thinks about bringing bear back in. And then educating the folks.
Ellen Buchanan [00:59:33] We got an email one time, a lady from Longview, and she had said. “You know, we don’t want bears in Longview.” Well, we’re not going to, the bears won’t be close to cities. We don’t, we don’t want that either. We don’t want them close to highways. Right? We want them to have plenty of wild areas to be in and try to stay there.
David Todd [01:00:02] Okay, that’s really helpful. I think that’s sort of gives us an idea of, I guess, sort of the logistical priority, political pressures, and, how difficult it can be to orchestrate a return, how long it can take.
David Todd [01:00:20] And I guess your perspective on this is in part where you’re coming from – all these different positions you fill – but I guess currently you’re chair of the Texas Black Bear Alliance. And I was hoping that you could tell us a little bit about the group and what its origins might have been. And, and you know, what its goals are and what some of its focuses might be.
Ellen Buchanan [01:00:43] Surely. Well, the Texas Black Bear Alliance was formed in 2005, so we’ve been around for a bit. And really it was wildlife biologists that, formed the Alliance. Those folks are retired now. It started out as an East Texas Black Bear Task Force. We are a non-profit. So, all kinds of people in involved in this. And our deal is promoting the restoration of black bears in suitable habitat throughout its historic range. Which means, you know, over here in southeast Texas, and looking at partnerships for education, research and habitat management.
Ellen Buchanan [01:01:31] I mean, we didn’t talk about this, but bears are part of our heritage. You know, you just look at that. I’m sorry I never got to see an ivory-billed woodpecker. Maybe I did, and I didn’t know it. Could have. But bears. I didn’t see a bear here. And it’s part of our heritage. It was part of the ecosystem. We would like to see bears back in the ecosystem.
Ellen Buchanan [01:01:58] And what, everybody loves bears, right? It would be interesting. I won’t be able to see it, but how bears would add to the ecosystem. Absolutely. So that’s what Black Bear Alliance is.
Ellen Buchanan [01:02:15] It’s, Adrian Van Dellen, I think you talked to Adrian. He has been a part of this, I guess, since 2005. And I would go to their annual meetings, and I would always tell Adrian, of course he was gathering people from all over East Texas. There were more people there than any meeting that I attended. And we still draw a huge crowd. And now that we can Zoom, right, for people that didn’t want to travel to Lufkin or Nacogdoches, then we Zoom. And we may have, you know, 60, 70 or more people on the Zoom call, besides having, you know, 100 people, at the venue.
Ellen Buchanan [01:03:02] And they’re extremely interested in bears. And it’s all kind of folks, all kind of folks. So, the interest is there. It is again, what is our vision for the future of Texas that bears were here, just like longleaf pine, that we’re urgently trying to bring back longleaf pine. Let’s bring back the black bear. Let’s try to protect these Big Thicket resources.
Ellen Buchanan [01:03:40] I think I told you, or I told somebody else the other day. They asked me. I can walk down my road. And in the spring, there are sundews, carnivorous plants growing on the side of the road. I have orchids that grow in my yard, and in my pasture. Where else, where else can you, you know, see things like this just walking down your road? You know, pileated flew over this morning. I may hear, walking down the road, four different woodpeckers, you know, in the mornings.
Ellen Buchanan [01:04:14] We love the apps now, right, where I can just let it run. And sometimes I can’t see the birds, but, at least I know what’s out there.
Ellen Buchanan [01:04:25] So, it’s what, it’s what we can continue to protect and what we can bring back, and the things that we don’t even know that could happen.
Ellen Buchanan [01:04:39] The Big Thicket is not a place where you have the vistas like you do with the Grand Canyon. It is the small things. It’s the sundews, the orchids, all of our pollinators. I took pictures of pollinators on the flowers yesterday.
David Todd [01:05:04] Yes, there’s a lot of richness there that may not be, you know, clear to see from 30,000 feet or from five miles away.
David Todd [01:05:13] Well, you mentioned the Big Thicket. And I notice that that you serve as the president of the Big Thicket Natural Heritage Trust. It’s a land trust. It’s based in Kountze. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that group, how the Trust started and how you got involved.
David Todd [01:05:31] And I guess maybe related to that, I understand that the Heritage Trust is interested in expanding the Big Thicket National Preserve. And, you know, again, there’s sort of a nice avenue to talk about black bears and whether that might be habitat for the black bear. Would you consider that a possibility for the preserve?
Ellen Buchanan [01:05:55] Yes. Absolutely. So the Big Thicket Natural Heritage Trust has been around for over 20 years. Maxine Johnston, 95 years old, now 95 and a half – talk about a vision for the future – Maxine is always working for the Big Thicket. The Big Thicket Association and then a consortium of other groups worked. The Big Thicket Association was re-formed in 1964. My daddy wrote the articles of incorporation for that. And worked for ten years. And when you think about it, ten years is a short time in political history. And the Big Thicket National Preserve was signed into law in October of 1974.
Ellen Buchanan [01:06:45] So we’ll be celebrating 50 years of Big Thicket.
Ellen Buchanan [01:06:51] And it took them ten years. And really, when you go back, R.E. Jackson really worked hard to get, you know, a portion of the Big Thicket protected. A lot of scientists came down, did studies. World War II kind of got in the way of that.
Ellen Buchanan [01:07:11] Just a kind of a back story. My grandpa on my mother’s side of the family, A.L. “Leak” Bevil, he didn’t hunt bears, but he hunted deer. The biggest thing, deer and fox, was running his dogs. He was a dog man. So running his dogs. And I have a little article out of the newspaper. The. The year didn’t come, but I’m sure it was the ’20s or ’30s, where some scientists had come down to study the Big Thicket and their entertainment for the evening was my grandpa took them on a fox hunt.
Ellen Buchanan [01:07:47] So, it’s our heritage. So, 50 years a Big Thicket, with National Park Service. And adding acreage to any national park, you have to have an administrative boundary change to that park. And so, to add to the Preserve, we have to have an administrative boundary change that goes through Congress.
Ellen Buchanan [01:08:23] So, in 1993 there was an Addition Act to the Preserve. It added the Village Creek corridor and the Canyonlands Unit and some other areas. And that was Charlie Wilson. Okay? Because Village Creek had really kind of gotten left out of the original 84,000-plus acres.
Ellen Buchanan [01:08:46] And so, Maxine had a vision that we needed something to be able to add acreage to the reserves. And so, Maxine did the research. I think you know that Carolyn Vogel was doing, you know, land trusts out of Texas Parks and Wildlife at that time. Carolyn and I went too (another little tidbit: we went to A&M together, and our courses followed each other).
Ellen Buchanan [01:09:17] So, Maxine is the one that got the Big Thicket. Natural Heritage Trust going with the vision that we needed to add acreage to the Preserve. And in just a shout out to the Conservation Fund: there was no funding for that 1993 Addition Act. And the Conservation Fund worked with the T.L.L. Temple Foundation, who supplied the funds to acquire that property, because the money wasn’t there.
Ellen Buchanan [01:09:50] So, that’s our main goal today is, for us to grow the Thicket and then to advocate for the Thicket. Advocacy has become our main goal at the time, just because of all the things that we’ve discussed. New roads, TXDOT, transmission lines, pipelines and any adverse effects that they could have on the Thicket. So, we spend a huge amount of time with advocacy, at the same time, trying to add property to our holdings. And then we’re going to work on an Additional Act.
Ellen Buchanan [01:10:33] It really is kind of neat and I’ll just kind of tell you a story. We got a donation of 50-plus acres in the Lance Rosier Unit, a remnant longleaf pine. Pretty neat. And I had been familiar with this piece of property. But this family, the husband was a doctor in Beaumont. And this was in the ’80s. And he had a beeper. And so, they bought this property in Hardin County because he could go up there. They had small children and his beeper could not reach him. He worked at the hospital.
Ellen Buchanan [01:11:12] So, you know, she told me that they raised their kids up there. It was a place where they could go and just relax and recreate and chill. And she donated that property to us because she wanted it to be, you know, saved in perpetuity, forever, and for other people to be able to enjoy that.
Ellen Buchanan [01:11:37] I knew the piece of property because Maxine had taken me up there because there is a pitcher plant bog with sundew and butterwort and bladderwort there. And Maxine had taken me up there.
Ellen Buchanan [01:11:56] So, our biggest problem is then getting this property that we own, that we have purchased, through donations from our supporters, and then donations of just land. We’ve got some deals going on right now where somebody wants to donate land to us, and then some property that we’re looking to purchase.
Ellen Buchanan [01:12:20] So, we need to have the boundary adjusted, that administrative boundary of the Preserve. It is the 50th anniversary of the Preserve. For all the things that we’ve talked about, the pressures on this resource that we look to add significant acreage to the Big Thicket National Preserve – mostly timber company property, mostly along the Neches River, Pine Island Bayou, Village Creek – in other words, floodplain property that no one should be building in or on.
Ellen Buchanan [01:13:01] That would be suitable habitat for a black bear and all kinds of other animals. And that wouldprotect that water quantity, quality and flooding.
Ellen Buchanan [01:13:15] So, I’m going to go back to the human dimension studies that we talked about with black bear in education. The word kind of got out before we were ready for it to get out, that we were looking to do this. And when I say “we”, we have a a consortium of folks again, that are working on this.
Ellen Buchanan [01:13:39] The main pushback is for folks that hunt and have leases on timber company property. And some of these folks have had leases for 40 and 50 years, you know, on the same property.
Ellen Buchanan [01:13:57] So, I can see their resistance in having this go into the Big Thicket National Preserve. But the difference between a preserve and a park is the preserve, and the Big Thicket was the first national preserve, is you can still have oil and gas activities and you can still have hunting. And so you can hunt with a permit in the Big Thicket National Preserve.
Ellen Buchanan [01:14:28] Now for these folks who are on leases, they’re not regulated really in any way by the timber companies. And so, it becomes, you know, they want it to just stay the way it’s stayed.
Ellen Buchanan [01:14:44] Again, if you look at the history of the area, folks with a deer stand, you know, a deer blind, those are … My grandpaw didn’t have deer blinds. All right, that’s new. People on their 4-by-4s? That’s really new, right?
Ellen Buchanan [01:15:07] Now my grandpa hunting deer would with dogs, and a lot of times, you know, you’d have one person one place and then the other folks waiting for the dogs to flush out the deer. But they weren’t sitting in a blind.
Ellen Buchanan [01:15:21] So that’s, that quote “heritage” for them is new. That’s a new heritage. 4-by-4s are a new heritage.
Ellen Buchanan [01:15:37] And with timber companies, you know, we used to say that they would sell. After we lost the Temples. You know, it used to be family-owned. You had Louisiana Pacific, the Temples, the Georgia Pacifics. Now they’re all timber, most of them, are all Timber Investment Management Organizations. They are growing trees for stockholders to make dollars.
Ellen Buchanan [01:16:06] And Temple was fabulous: again, a vision for the future. Bottomland – a vision for the future. And so it’s the vision for the future. Again, what we would look at in an Addition Act is is bottomland. And yes, some people would lose their hunting leases because it would go into their Preserve. But then they could still also hunt there.
Ellen Buchanan [01:16:34] And I don’t speak for the National Park Service, so I’m not going to say what areas I would have open for hunting. But, you know, if it’s a large enough area, then I would not be surprised that some of these areas would be open for hunting.
Ellen Buchanan [01:16:48] So, that that’s going to be our next push. We’re kind of on a pause because we did have pushback. And so, what we need to do now is communication and working with these folks, communicating with them on what their concerns are and what we can do to alleviate those concerns.
David Todd [01:17:15] Okay. Well, that gives a great kind of view of not only the Natural Heritage Trust, but also the Big Thicket National Preserve and some of the, you know, the issues of the culture and the hunting community, the leaseholders. So, thanks for talking about that.
David Todd [01:17:36] You know, you’ve worn so many hats and one of your past positions was as president of the Big Thicket Association. I think you mentioned, it came together through efforts by your father and Maxine Johnson and others, back in ’64. Can you talk about, you know, your role in the Association and what its current activities and aspirations might be?
Ellen Buchanan [01:18:06] Surely, surely. And I didn’t get to tell you the story. I’ll show you another story. So, you know, the Big Thicket Association came to be in Saratoga, the big town. But that’s where my daddy grew up, all right. And so I still had an aunt and uncle that lived in Saratoga. My daddy’s sister. So, that’s another part of my growing up, too. We spent a lot of time there.
Ellen Buchanan [01:18:34] And I think you’re familiar, David, with Honey Island Pool. And so we would go, you know, my aunt would take us (and this is back when you rode in the back of the pickup trucks) out to Honey Island Pool when we were visiting. And then we would go every day and, of course, to the Bragg Light. At night, then we would go out Bragg Light. So, that was another part. And riding goats in the back. My uncle always had a goat. We didn’t realize that he was eating the goats, but we would ride those goats. So, that was another part of my growing up.
Ellen Buchanan [01:19:13] Now, what was the question I forgot? Oh, Saratoga and the Big Thicket Association. Yes.
Ellen Buchanan [01:19:23] So sadly, my daddy died young. He died in 1968. So, he died before the Big Thicket came into being, but the Big Thicket Association was there to advocate for, you know, the forming of the Big Thicket, and did a whole lot of educating. I mean, it’s the same thing that we want to do now with black bear. Did a whole lot of education on the Big Thicket area, did a whole lot of advocacy, because they knew the special areas. And so watching timber companies and where they were cutting.
Ellen Buchanan [01:20:02] Again, Maxine, you know, she was friends with all these people. I would say that she should have been a diplomat for the United States because, she was the best diplomat that I know, but worked with the timber companies, knew these folks by first names, had keys to everything, and would be able to call them.
Ellen Buchanan [01:20:22] And she tells a story about being, you know, the librarian at Lamar University. And Lance Rosier didn’t have a telephone. And so, the different scientists, different folks, would call Maxine at the library to get a message back to Lance in the evenings. I mean… And because Maxine was there, she was the go-to person and she always says, “I was just the organizer.” No, Maxine. But she was a great, fabulous organizer as well as everything else.
Ellen Buchanan [01:20:55] So, they were doing the same thing there – education, advocacy, human dimensions of working with the folks because some people might lose their land even though there was no eminent domain as far as I know, with the original Big Thicket National Preserve. And it was a lot of timber company. And so Big Thicket Association was the coordinator, and then they even had a coordinating committee as it kind of moved on and so Big Thicket Association was a part of that.
Ellen Buchanan [01:21:31] And so, the Preserve will be celebrating 50 years, and at the same time, that date, is the Big Thicket Association will be celebrating 60 years. And so through all of that time, of 60 years, Big Thicket, Association has been an advocate for the Big Thicket.
Ellen Buchanan [01:21:57] BTA today has gone more into education. They were able to purchase, or not even purchase, it was given to them – the Ivory Bill boat, that Lamar University had. And so they do a lot of educating now on the boat and taking school children on the Neches up Ten Mile Bayou, you know, places where a lot of these schoolchildren maybe didn’t even know the Neches River was there.
Ellen Buchanan [01:22:25] So, they’re doing a great job with education at the same time, still advocating for the Preserve.
Ellen Buchanan [01:22:34] So, sad thing was, is that I was living here. I was at Martin Dies when I was president of BTA, and then I moved to Tyler as the regional director for TPW. So, I was kind of not in the area. So, I was not as productive as I would have liked to have been, with BTA, especially having a new job.
Ellen Buchanan [01:22:57] But Maxine always comes to the rescue, right, of us flailing folks. Yes.
David Todd [01:23:04] Well, I love how it’s sort of an ecosystem, where you’ve got all these different non-profits and agencies, and then you’ve got these real luminaries like, you know, Maxine or you mentioned Geraldine Watson earlier, and of course, yourself. So, thanks for filling in about the the Heritage Trust and the Association.
David Todd [01:23:24] Let’s talk a little bit about something called the Big Thicket Biosphere Reserve Board, based in Lumberton, as I understand it. You’re a board member, or were. What’s its focus?
Ellen Buchanan [01:23:38] I am.
David Todd [01:23:39] Still are. I’m sorry.
Ellen Buchanan [01:23:40] So. Well, and I can’t tell you the year, I apologize, that Big Thicket National Preserve became a UNESCO, United Nations, Man and Biosphere site. Okay? So, those are designations all over the United States and the world, but there are not that many of them. You know, we’re a World Birding site and, and a UNESCO site, which there’s just not that many places in Texas that are Man and Biosphere sites.
Ellen Buchanan [01:24:16] So, a few years ago, UNESCO Man and Biosphere decided that they needed to, it needed to go, and National Park Service decided that it needed to get out of National Park Service, okay, into a different entity. So, I remember going to that meeting that was several years ago, where they were looking for an entity to take over the Man and Biosphere.
Ellen Buchanan [01:24:43] And it’s the whole of the Big Thicket area. So, everything that we have been talking about – the biodiversity, so it’s biosphere, but it’s man in this ecosystem. And again, trying to do the same thing takes us all, right, to educate the folks about what we have here, our impacts on it and how we can do better.
Ellen Buchanan [01:25:12] So, we formed a new 501(c)(3), Mary Barnard. And of course, we formed it right during Covid, right? Right? And so, have been a little bit slow to go, but not really. Now I’ve gotten several grants and really working on so that we can be in the communities working on pollinator gardens and things like this. So, that you’re in the community, you’re out there, you’re working with cities, you’re working with schools, so that we can kind of, not kind of, so that we can get the word out about Big Thicket and, and the whole area, because it is the whole area and how we develop the whole area, how we manage the whole area.
Ellen Buchanan [01:26:06] I’ll just say this – another bad thing – but, so I went down to, I went down to a TCEQ public meeting about a new ethane cracker coming in and Nederland. And it’s really one of the last open areas on the Neches River down there, 400 acres of floodplain.
Ellen Buchanan [01:26:25] And this ethane cracker’s going to go in. It’s going to pollute as well as destroy that wetland, which they have to mitigate for. But we’re still losing wetland, you know, you still lost the wetland. And so, somebody had talked about somebody earlier who spoke, said something about flooding. And they had a great picture of all their tanks that they’re going to have. And I said, “You know, you do need to think about your neighbors and flooding because those tanks are not going to absorb one gallon of water.”
Ellen Buchanan [01:27:00] So, Biosphere, again, all of us, trying to get folks to think, to think before they design, before they act. Trying to get TXDOT to think how their roads fit in to this area. And to think. Just telling them: if they would just use common sense and then engineer to that, they would do better.
Ellen Buchanan [01:27:28] But everything we do has an impact. Everything we do has an impact. So, we’re here. We’re not going to go away (we might if the climate continues to change). Okay. So, what can we do to make our impact less, and to help protect the environment instead of bringing it down?
Ellen Buchanan [01:27:57] So that’s what Man and Biosphere is about. And, you know, trying to get folks to think what they themselves are, what impact they have on this area.
David Todd [01:28:11] Okay. That helps a lot. I think it gives us a picture of this sort of holistic, big-frame, high view of not just the Preserve, but that whole ecosystem and how people fit into the picture. So, thank you.
David Todd [01:28:27] So, maybe we can also look at the dimension of time. You’ve been a board member of the Hardin County Historical Commission, and I think it would be interesting to think about the history of Hardin County – you have such deep roots there, as do the bears. And I was wondering if, as you met with the commission, do those sort of cultural issues or wildlife issues come up, or is it more sort of about the built world that you focus on?
Ellen Buchanan [01:29:02] No, it’s, it’s the cultural. I mean, they have a great, I mean, there’s a Hardin County Museum. And they have cultural and the built. Absolutely. And I’m going to say it’s more cultural than it is built, even though I have great pictures of some of the mills, you know, that were here and all. But it’s, I will tell you this: the museum is based more on the people. Okay? Because it is the people that made that area. But it’s the resources that made the people.
Ellen Buchanan [01:29:42] So, so what I always kind of say is that, you know, why did people come here in the first place – well, water. And how did everybody get their goods to market? Water. I’m sure you’ve read “Texas Riverman” by William Seale. And, you know, that was coming out of Jasper County, Bevilport, but Andrew Smyth and, you know, just with a skiff and taking his goods down to Sabine Pass and then to Galveston.
Ellen Buchanan [01:30:19] So water. We had water, we had food. We had shelter. And so, if you look at Hardin County, yes, the people came in. But this area, the Big Thicket area, they had to work in different ways. Okay. It wasn’t like it was already cleared. It wasn’t all of that. They had to work in different ways. And how can they use that resource, you know, to better help themselves?
Ellen Buchanan [01:30:53] Does that makes sense?
David Todd [01:30:55] Yeah. Sure, sure. It seems like they were trying to do several things at once. Not only open up the area in a way that they could occupy it, but also use the resources and be able to move around, on the rivers, I guess, mostly.
Ellen Buchanan [01:31:10] Yes.
David Todd [01:31:11] And I suppose that when they were moving through this landscape, they were seeing bears. Is that something that, you know, you would discuss at the Commission or that gets highlighted in the Museum?
Ellen Buchanan [01:31:25] Really, really didn’t discuss that. But, we did do, in the Hardin County Courthouse, you know, our old courthouse got torn down, and they built this courthouse in the ’60s. Even though it’s historic now too, But what we do have, we did do a mural project, which is pretty neat. They kind of built an old dome on the site, you know, had some, had some of the columns from the old courthouse and put it up. And so then in the top of that dome, then we have murals depicting, you know, different aspects of Hardin County. And so I made sure that a bear and an alligator were in the pictures. Yes.
David Todd [01:32:12] That’s great.
Ellen Buchanan [01:32:13] Because it is all about the, I mean, you know, it’s about the people. It’s about the resource. It’s about the people. I mean, it’s the timber industry. But if the people weren’t here, then the timber industry wouldn’t be here. If the trees weren’t here, then the timber industry wouldn’t have been here. If the oil and gas weren’t here. … you know, it’s the same, same old thing.
David Todd [01:32:34] Sure, sure.
[01:32:36] But you were given these resources, but we’ve just exploited beyond compare. Instead of taking care of these resources, we’ve exploited them, and we continue to exploit, instead of can we live in harmony with the resource?
Ellen Buchanan [01:32:59] And again, it goes back to what is our vision for the future? It’s not too late. It’s not too late. But we need to start doing some things.
Ellen Buchanan [01:33:10] And growing the Big Thicket would help that. It would help it tremendously of expanding these boundaries, especially along the Neches River. It’s a thin strip. You know, they called it “the String of Pearls”. And somebody asked that question not too long ago. Was that a good idea? Well, it kind of was, because… I don’t want anybody to get any ideas.
Ellen Buchanan [01:33:33] But, I mean, the Big Thicket is protected. You know, you cannot cross the Big Thicket. Okay. Because transmission lines, electricity, you can, and this new line that’s going to go will probably go across Pine Island Bayou where the old line did.
Ellen Buchanan [01:33:50] But pipelines can’t cross the Big Thicket, so it narrows that. What’s sad is, is there’s a piece, Sandy Lands Sanctuary on Village Creek that’s owned by the Nature Conservancy. So, they’re about to get a new pipeline because it won’t, will not go through the Preserve.
Ellen Buchanan [01:34:07] So, the Preserve is helping to protect this area because some things cannot cross it.
David Todd [01:34:15] We’ll so you talked about this history of how efficient we’ve been at exploiting these resources and, and I’ve read over the years about some of these anecdotes of Ben Lilly and Uncle Bud Bracken and I’m sure there were others who had these famous bear hunts.
Ellen Buchanan [01:34:38] Yes.
Ellen Buchanan [01:34:39] Oh, the Hooks, the famous Hooks Bear camp. Absolutely. Which was located in what is now the Lance Rosier Unit, in that triangle that I was talking about. Yes.
David Todd [01:34:51] Well, do you recall any of these stories, you know, of the people and their exploits?
Ellen Buchanan [01:35:00] You know, I don’t. I don’t because my grandpa was not a, he was not a bear hunter. He was a deer hunter. And again, it was his dogs that were more important than anything, but did not get, did not go into, get into bear.
Ellen Buchanan [01:35:15] But I mean, yes, books have been written about the Hooks and the Brackens and then Ben Lilly, of course, went all over the United States killing. And I’m not against hunting, but I’m just… If you’re going to kill something, then eat it.
David Todd [01:35:37] So, some of this was, I guess, sustenance, but some of it was also trophy hunting?
Ellen Buchanan [01:35:43] Oh, I think a lot of it in the end was trophy hunting. Yes. And how many bear could you kill?
David Todd [01:35:53] So it wasn’t just how big it was or how furry it was.
Ellen Buchanan [01:35:58] No.
David Todd [01:35:59] But also just the count, keeping the tally.
Ellen Buchanan [01:36:03] You know, in a I don’t know what it was – Daniel Lay’s book or whose book it was that talks about, you know, here came the Spaniards, here came the French. And our indigenous people usually just took what they needed. Right? And that, and I don’t have the footnotes, so I can’t tell you but that, you know, in one year, indigenous peoples sold 40,000 deer hide to the French. So, all of us became a part of that, even the indigenous people. You know, for a blanket or some beads – 40,000 deer hides in one year. It’s like amazing. How much is too much?
Ellen Buchanan [01:37:00] And in this day and age, I think really the thing is, how much is too much?
David Todd [01:37:10] Yeah, it’s funny, we’ve…
Ellen Buchanan [01:37:12] I don’t want to philosophize, but I mean, it’s like, how much is too much?
David Todd [01:37:16] Well, you know, we’ve got an economy that is based on growth. And so each year we’ve got to figure out a way to wring a little bit more out of the, you know, the sponge. And I guess at some point your, squeezing a stone.
Ellen Buchanan [01:37:31] But who is making the money? This is what I’m saying about LNG. Who’s making the money? Why is Jefferson County’s unemployment rate higher than the rest of Texas? Where does the money actually go?
David Todd [01:37:49] Yeah. Well, let’s talk about, maybe sort of a cultural issue. I mean these debates about money are maybe something that that we’d have to look at lots of charts and graphs, but maybe you with your deep roots there and, you know, good sense of of people’s attitudes, what do you think the public view is in East Texas about black bears and their possible return? It sounds like, you know, you get good attendance at your Alliance meetings. What sort of, you know, responses do you hear from people who attend or people you meet in the grocery store, or, you know, in church or when you’re walking out in the neighborhood? What do people think about bears now?
Ellen Buchanan [01:38:41] Well, I think that the folks that attend our meetings, those are the ones that are for bringing black bear back. It was like, you know, the person in Longview that didn’t want bear, which they wouldn’t, you know, hopefully not be in Longview or Beaumont, proper. So, I think it’s going to be the same thing. It’s just like folks are worried about the expansion of the Big Thicket National Preserve.
Ellen Buchanan [01:39:07] I think that they would be worried about expansion of black bear and what that would do. Can they feed their dogs on the back porch? You know, they were worried about their children, earlier when it was looked at, their children being at the bus stop, you know, and a bear harming their children at the bus stop, which if you’re not educated about bear, then I can see that worry.
Ellen Buchanan [01:39:36] So, if it ever did come to where, you know, re-introduction would happen. It would be someplace back, ‘way back, in the woods, not, not close to a bus stop for that to happen.
Ellen Buchanan [01:39:50] So, I think that, again, that’s why we have to do the human dimension studies, you know, talking to people to find out what their attitudes are right now, what would change those attitudes? And for us to, you know, we’re already educating to some extent, but really ramping up the education part of, you know, if black bears were here.
David Todd [01:40:17] And if bears were to return to Texas, do you think that folks could learn how to co-exist with them? Is that a possibility?
Ellen Buchanan [01:40:25] Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Because, you know, you don’t feed the dogs or the cats on the back porch because the bears are going to be on your back porch. You do like our friends in Georgia, and I’m going to get you their names and contact numbers – the Hillshires. And that they had made every accommodation to not get in those bears’ way.
Ellen Buchanan [01:40:55] They learned really quickly that you could not bring pizza to the house and then have a pizza smell in your car. So now, whether they’re coming from the grocery store or if they did pick up food in town or something, then they roll the windows down in their vehicles to air it out before they get there. They spray their vehicle when they get out of it. You know, and then take the food upstairs.
Ellen Buchanan [01:41:20] And just the different things they do with their garbage, their cat litter, all these kind of things. And it doesn’t take them that much time, at all.
Ellen Buchanan [01:41:31] So, it drives me crazy to think that New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey have bears. And I realize there are a lot of rural areas there. Okay. But New Jersey and they have bears? Those people live with them. And we don’t have bears in Texas? It drives me crazy. It drives me crazy that I have to go someplace else, I have to go out of state or go in Big Bend and, you know, hope that a bear crosses my path. But I’d have to go out of state to go see a bear. Yes.
Ellen Buchanan [01:42:14] So, New Jersey has bears and Texas, southeast Texas does not. There’s something wrong with that.
David Todd [01:42:23] Well, maybe not forever.
David Todd [01:42:25] So, as you look back at your own life, I mean, we sort of talked about the community and the area and these non-profits. But this is a personal question. I’m curious, as you look back on your life and your many roles in nature conservation, bear advocacy, what stands out as important?
Ellen Buchanan [01:42:54] Just trying to save a little bit of my part of the country – a little bit of Texas, a little bit of the United States, a little bit of the world. I mean, I think that, you know, the Big Thicket does make the whole world turn. Absolutely. So, if I can make my part of the world, just like working at Texas Parks and Wildlife, if I can make Texas and even the workforce at Texas Parks at Wildlife a little bit better, then that’s great.
Ellen Buchanan [01:43:28] And we’re gonna continue to do that. Maxine is continuing to do it. And so, we’re going to keep after it.
David Todd [01:43:38] Keep on keeping on.
David Todd [01:43:40] So another question, what sort of importance do you see in wildlife in general, but maybe black bears in particular? Is there, you know, is there some value just ecologically, you know, their role in recycling or acting as a predator or, you know, moving seeds and mast around, just ecologically? Or is there some sort of an ethical call that, you know, this is a fellow creature on the planet. Or maybe there’s some more personal or spiritual value you see in bears, maybe wildlife in general?
Ellen Buchanan [01:44:19] I think it’s all of the above.
Ellen Buchanan [01:44:21] I mean, wildlife was here before we were. I mean, they were here before we were. We’re the ones that pushed them out. We destroyed their habitat. We’ve killed them out. So, it’s up to us to right that wrong.
Ellen Buchanan [01:44:39] And I think that bears do, and as I said, just like they didn’t know what bringing wolves back to Yellowstone was going to do. And it’s been fabulous. We’re not sure exactly what bears will do, but they eat, as you just said, they eat a whole lot of berries and different seeds. And then those are taken different places.
Ellen Buchanan [01:45:02] They had, they wouldn’t have been here, but they had a role in the ecosystem. So, they were here for a reason, right? And they had a role. We’re not sure the exact role that bears had because we weren’t doing scientific data at the time.
Ellen Buchanan [01:45:20] So, for folks of the future, it’ll be very interesting to see, if bears are reintroduced and become a thriving population in southeast Texas, how that, if it will and does change the ecosystem for the better.
David Todd [01:45:40] So, you know, there’s a lot of interest there in what you said about the value of a bear in East Texas. I’m wondering if you could also talk about what the value is of returning an animal that has disappeared to a place that hasn’t seen it for many years. And, you know, I think about, you know, the effort to bring back the red-cockaded woodpecker or other creatures that once were more common. And, you know, I wonder how you view this campaign to return a bear to its old home.
Ellen Buchanan [01:46:24] I think it’s an intrinsic value. I mean, if I can go other, other places and see things that are not here. Right? And there are some places, a lot of places, in the United States I have not visited, but I know it’s there. Right? I know it’s there. And, I own part of that, because it’s probably in a national park.
Ellen Buchanan [01:46:52] Bears were/are our part of my heritage. I would like to see that back. It’s just knowing that some of these things are out there. Some things I don’t even again that I don’t even know about, that are protecting my history or recounting my history.
Ellen Buchanan [01:47:15] I will say this, I just, I work with some folks that are out of Illinois, and they’ve done some work down here, college professors, about air pollution and flooding. And there’s a new National Park Service site up there, a new Philadelphia Freedom Colony started by a freed slave. And it is in Pike County, Illinois. And so, they sent me a letter since I work with the National Park Service, they wanted me to come up there and maybe be a part of their planning process, because I’d bring a different view into that.
Ellen Buchanan [01:47:57] So, this is Pike County. They sent me a letter on their letterhead. A lot of their folks are from Pittsfield, Illinois. On my mother’s side, my great grandmother was born in Pittsfield, Illinois. Must be. Must be. Meant to be.
David Todd [01:48:24] We’re all connected in some way. That’s great.
Ellen Buchanan [01:48:31] So, we’re all connected. So, yeah, we’re all connected. You just don’t know what bringing the bear back would do for this area. The Big Thicket is already a draw for recreation, for birding, for the natural resources – that you can, that you can see carnivorous plants here. And so having bear is just another, another thing.
Ellen Buchanan [01:49:01] I mean, I look for ivory bill, every pileated woodpecker I see. And when that bird flies over, I’m looking to see a white spot in back. Right? That it is a, in fact, an ivory bill. Not to be so far. So, I keep looking for ivory-billed woodpecker. I’m hoping that they’re still here. Wouldn’t that be fabulous? I mean, but we have to have two. So, I’m still hoping.
[01:49:30] And. Yeah, sure, red-cockaded woodpecker – that’s another reason for us to bring back longleaf pine. Where do red-cockaded woodpecker live? In old-heart longleaf pine. Now, today we make the cavity, right? And so there are groups that are working right now to bring back red-cockaded woodpecker to the Big Thicket National Preserve. There had been colonies, not colonies, anymore. And it’ll probably be in the Big Sandy Unit.
Ellen Buchanan [01:49:57] So, to me, we always need to work for that goal. We always need to work for that goal, whether it’s red-cockaded woodpecker, ivory-bill, maybe, but black bear, for sure.
David Todd [01:50:12] Got it. So, I guess you’ve returned to this a couple of times. Just having a, having a plan, thinking about the future and maybe, you know, focusing on some of these animals gives you something discrete and tangible, kind of, that you can focus on.
Ellen Buchanan [01:50:29] Yes.
David Todd [01:50:29] Say, “Hey, this is where we are headed.” Is that what you’re saying?
Ellen Buchanan [01:50:32] Yes. And I mean, you know, we have the longleaf implementation team that’s really working and has gotten grants and is now working with Texan by Nature, and that we actually have companies that are funding some of this longleaf restoration because again, it goes back to that you have a whole ecosystem.
Ellen Buchanan [01:50:57] Geraldine Watson says in her plant ecology book that once longleaf pine, you know, stopped evolving, it took 10,000 years for that ecosystem to come to climax – 10,000 years for that longleaf pine ecosystem to become a climax ecosystem. And this is what I’ve said, “How long did it take John Henry Kirby to cut it all down, without a vision for the future?” Okay?
Ellen Buchanan [01:51:35] So, we’re working now to restore that longleaf pine through the longleaf implementation team. Texan by Nature, where you have companies that see the value in bringing that whole ecosystem back because it’s holding water. It’s holding water, which again goes back to what I said previously – the quantity of water and the cleanliness of water. Okay? And that’s what these ecosystems provide.
Ellen Buchanan [01:52:13] So, these big companies that are coming into Texas, what do they need? They need clean water. So, they’re actually putting money into some of these restoration projects.
Ellen Buchanan [01:52:25] And then Texas by Nature doing the science behind it to see how much water is actually staying on that site through these, through the research and the management practices that are going on.
Ellen Buchanan [01:52:41] It’s like people don’t understand about yaupon, which is a native plant for Texas. But in the past, wildfire came through on a regular basis. And so yaupon stayed at a manageable height. Now, without fire, without people keeping their fence line, yaupon grows to 20 feet. Then, when you have a fire come through, yaupon burns like crazy. So, it’ll immediately take that fire to the top of the tree.
Ellen Buchanan [01:53:14] So some of these projects that Longleaf Implementation Team and Texan by Nature are doing, where they had an old longleaf forest, and you’ll have to talk to them about this David, it is really interesting. But they had an old longleaf forest that hadn’t been maintained, hadn’t been burned. And the yaupon has grown to 20 feet.
Ellen Buchanan [01:53:33] They’re coming in and taking out – number one is they put in well. Stephen F. Austin is doing this work. They put in wells to measure the amount of ground water. They’re thinning the forest because it’s gotten too thick of what it would have been in a natural longleaf forest. Then they have all this undergrowth of yaupon. They’re taking the yaupon out because yaupon is absorbing water. Right? Taking up water?
Ellen Buchanan [01:54:03] And then over time, we’ll be able to show, by doing those management practices and putting that longleaf pine back into a natural forest, how much water is conserved in the Trinity River basin? This project is in the Trinity River.
David Todd [01:54:21] That’s great. And so, it’s giving some data and numbers and something tangible that people can look at to say, “This is why you have these ecosystem services, and why you need them.”
Ellen Buchanan [01:54:34] Some data and numbers. Another interesting deal that’s going on too is Lamar University, A&M, Texas, Prairie View, I think is in there, I believe I said, Lamar. They got a grant from the Department of Energy and they are studying both air pollution and flooding. These people are so smart. I love talking to them.
Ellen Buchanan [01:55:03] Data and science, data and science that they’re putting together, and I bring into the Neches River Flood Planning Group. We have talked about this. We had Entergy come and speak and work a lot with Dr. Liv Haselbach at Lamar. She’s a civil engineer. I learned a lot from her and she’s talking about “Ellen, you’re, you know, we haven’t thought about these linear projects going on, whether it be a road, pipeline or transmission line that needs to be considered in, you know, our flood planning.”
Ellen Buchanan [01:55:42] So, one of the things I appreciate about this Department of Energy grant, it’s going to be data and science. Because I can preach a lot. I’m not a scientist. But these folks are going to come with the numbers, and I’ll be glad to say, “Hey, I was wrong.” It’s like this Texan by Nature project. I can say I was wrong, but I think, I think I’m right. I am not a scientist, but I’m a watcher of the land. You know, I watch. I watch, I see what’s going on. I see what direction the water is running.
David Todd [01:56:30] Well. You’ve told us a lot. I love that you have this deep tie to that country and like you say, you’re observant, you know, and then you report what you see. And I wouldn’t put it as preaching, I think that you’re trying to tell a story about something you know really well. And, maybe the data will bear you out.
David Todd [01:56:55] So, one last question.
Ellen Buchanan [01:56:57] Sure.
David Todd [01:56:57] Is there anything you’d like to add that we somehow skipped over ( and I apologize for that), but if you’d like to fill that in, about bears or other topics that you’d like to share?
Ellen Buchanan [01:57:11] I’ll just say this: that if folks, would take the time to know, understand the Big Thicket, and again, this comes back to us, we’ve got to do this, that they would have a better appreciation. I think that, I don’t think, I know that East Texas is the forgotten part of the state. And I’m talking about from, you know, Atlanta, Texas, all the way down here. Not sure why. But it is a forgotten part of the state.
Ellen Buchanan [01:57:44] It’s like you want to take our resources, but you don’t want to give anything back. Whether it’s trees, oil and gas, water. And for folks if they would just, you know, get to know us over here and what all we have to offer instead of just taking from us – is give, giving back and wanting to also help us protect these resources.
Ellen Buchanan [01:58:14] Because it’s a fabulous place. It absolutely is. But it’s getting our politicians, it’s getting our state agencies, as in TXDOT, to understand the value. And I drive on the roads every day. But it’s how we build our roads that counts. And taking the communities in mind. We do want to get faster from A to Z. But we are rural communities over here. And how do we maintain that rural heritage and those rural communities here, at the same time providing economic benefit for these folks that are here.
Ellen Buchanan [01:59:08] Because when you put a, what they call now, you know, a “relief route” instead of a “loop” around a community, and nobody’s stopping there to buy gas anymore or eat at the one restaurant. And what are you doing to the economies of that community in that county?
David Todd [01:59:26] Yeah. I here you. Got to think about what happens next.
Ellen Buchanan [01:59:33] What’s the vision? What’s the vision? Yeah. TXDOT: what’s your vision? And it’s not, it shouldn’t, the vision should not be getting goods to market faster. And I think that Houston has proven it does not matter how many lanes you build. And I know we all like to drive our own vehicle. Right? But what is the vision? How do we move people without everybody sitting in their own vehicle in traffic?
David Todd [02:00:06] That would be a better future.
Ellen Buchanan [02:00:08] That would be a better future. I mean, I live over here for a reason. I don’t want to be in the in the city. I had to go to Austin too much, right? Working for Parks. And Mmm, mmm. Austin used to be the best place to go. I mean, you know, when I was a kid, when I was at A&M, we’d go to Austin, and I lived in La Grange.
Ellen Buchanan [02:00:27] Now. Mmm mmm. No, thank you. I’m sorry, David.
David Todd [02:00:31] Well, thank you for coming here digitally, at least. Ellen, I really appreciate your time. And, it looks like it’s lunch time.
Ellen Buchanan [02:00:42] Okay. Well, you edit this to make me not look like a hick from southeast Texas, okay?
David Todd [02:00:47] Oh, no. You’re the cultural ambassador of East Texas. No, this has been wonderful. Thank you very much.
Ellen Buchanan [02:00:57] Thank you.
David Todd [02:00:58] I’m going to turn off the recording and let you go about your day. Thank you for sharing so much of your time.
Ellen Buchanan [02:01:04] I appreciate it. That was fun.
Ellen Buchanan [02:01:07] I will just tell you this too, that, well, because I was in Washington County, and then as a kid, I went to camp out in Kerrville, Hunt, Texas, on the Guadalupe. And so, that was fabulous. And then I went back as a counselor. So, I’ve kind of been, you know, have been in different parts of the state. And I was in La Grange for 13 years.
Ellen Buchanan [02:01:29] So, I think that gives me more of an appreciation, even, for southeast Texas. I mean, I love those areas, but again, I don’t want to go to the Hill Country because I don’t like to see it. Right? I know what it was.
Ellen Buchanan [02:01:44] So, even La Grange: I know what La Grange was. I don’t like to see it.
David Todd [02:01:50] Yeah, it makes me nostalgic, but, it’s nice to have gone away and then come back to a place you love. And maybe you love it all the more because of that.
Ellen Buchanan [02:02:00] Oh, yeah. So, we’re trying to protect it. That’s it exactly. We’re trying to protect it from it becoming the Hill Country. Lord have mercy.
David Todd [02:02:08] Okay.
Ellen Buchanan [02:02:09] David, thank you.
David Todd [02:02:10] You bet. Thank you, I appreciate it.
Ellen Buchanan [02:02:13] Take care.