- ANNOUNCER: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure: it's what we share.

- NARRATOR: Coming up on Texas Parks and Wildlife... - You can be inspired by the nature itself, you know, and somehow try to convert that into music.

- If it's in the water... - Big crab.

- ...It usually has something in it.

- When they arrive, they just step out onto the boardwalk.

[theme music] ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: Texas Parks and Wildlife, a television series for all outdoors.

[water flowing] - MORGAN: With site-specific dance, you have to adapt and shapeshift your movements in real time.

It's ever-changing, it's evolving, it's ever-living.

- I started making music with plants about 11 years ago.

We're translating these slight changes in electricity in plants into music.

- You can be inspired by the nature itself, you know, and somehow try to convert that into music.

[serene music] ♪ ♪ Going out to Big Bend, that high desert, that loneliness, that space and that sense of peace that you get out there, you know, getting away from the busy of the world.

[traffic rumbling] Coming from Austin where there's so much noise.

[traffic rumbling] You have traffic, you got leaf blowers, got people mowing their lawns.

You leave town and you go out to a Big Bend, this epic landscape of West Texas... a shocking silence.

Seeing this mountain range and driving for hours, and it just starts to appear in the distance, and then grows and grows and grows, that's really what I was trying to represent.

My name is Justin Sherburn.

I'm a composer here in Austin, Texas.

My group is called Montopolis.

[spirited music] The essential thing for me was representing that majesty and that minimalism.

What are you trying to do?

You're trying to communicate that feeling to people when they listen to the music.

What emotion is this giving to me?

And you do that through all the tools that you have as a composer.

You know, melody and rhythm and choice of instrumentation and all these things.

So that's the starting point.

But the overarching theme is that just pure beauty of nature, pure beauty of the wildlife, pure beauty of getting away.

With the "Big Bend Overture," the essential thing for me was grandeur.

And it starts with this big fanfare representing the mountains and the majesty, followed by silence.

So it's a big phrase, and then silence for two bars.

So you see right here, we have the horns and strings, and the majesty followed by silence.

[gentle solemn music] [birds chirping] There's so much in nature that directly translates to music and provides this great inspiration.

It's just an infinite source for describing the emotion musically, but sometimes in quite literal.

This melodic line is gonna emulate a river.

It's a pretty big leap conceptually to say, "I am listening to this music and it's making me feel like I'm, you know, in a creek."

But, yeah, you do your best.

[water flowing] [water flowing] - Doing dance in nature really connects and grounds me to my identity, to my bigger place in the world and my, my purpose.

Site-specific dance is the dance that can't take place anywhere else.

Nature is the biggest symphony for us.

And so to be able to hear the sounds of the birds, the waterfalls, the rocks, the splashes in the water, it's important for us to connect with the nature.

An arm might be representative of a tree or a gesture that's more like flowy could be representative of a waterfall.

All of those movements were inspired by things that we see in real time.

[serene music] - When I was improvising by the tree, I was listening to the sounds of like the waterfall and the sounds of the birds chirping and, like, having that inform my movement.

We get to explore our environment in a way that I think the average person doesn't get to.

[serene music] [water gushing] - When I see a really large open space in nature, I really can't help myself but want to move and dance my body around to show my appreciation for the space, which really brings me a lot of joy and, like, almost feels like a collaboration with nature.

[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ It is almost like a meditative process, which might seem odd since we're not like closing our eyes or standing still.

But you're able to really, like, go into this serene mindset and enjoy all of the details that sometimes when you're moving so fast in life, you miss.

[dramatic music] [birds chirping] - MORGAN: We're humans on this earth living and breathing as trees and plants and life.

And so I feel like I become more centered and grounded in myself and my identity when I am moving with nature.

[wind blowing] [gentle music] - Every single step is a new moment.

We're always evolving, we're always moving forward.

Everything is going to change.

So, as we're walking on a trail, it's nice to take a moment to stop and enjoy where you are.

[birds chirping] My name's Joe Patitucci and I make music with plants.

It seems interesting that I'm always inspired by these natural places.

It's almost like they were speaking through me musically.

And I thought, "What would happen if I just took myself out of the equation?"

"What if the plants could kind of sing on their own?"

Oh, this is really cool.

I love the color.

I'll set up and lay my things down, and then bring out my PlantWave.

Now I'm connecting my clips to the leaves of the Turk's cap.

[serene music] And I'm listening.

[serene music] And the music is a real time expression of what's happening in the plant.

It's really harmonious.

It's really relaxing to listen to.

[serene music] And then when I unclip, it all fades away.

[serene music] I think of myself as an artist that just gets out of the way of the beauty that is already happening.

And maybe I make some new channels for that to be expressed with technology, but it's really just getting out of the way.

The way we listen to plants is with this device called PlantWave.

It reads slight changes in conductivity through a plant.

It graphs those as a wave and then translates the wave into pitch.

And those pitch messages are routed to different instruments that I design.

So every single note that is expressed in plant music is the representation of a change that's actually happening in real time in a plant.

Technology can be whatever you want it to be.

Technology can be a distraction or it can be a tool.

It helps me to connect to what I value most, and it's just natural beauty is the most perfect beauty that could exist.

[serene music] [birds chirping] This idea of nature being separate from humanity is a myth that we tell ourselves.

When you have that kind of understanding of plants, it kind of ingrains a new level of respect for our environment and how we're caring for places like this park.

[serene music] - BROOKE: It's a unique way to connect to a space.

♪ ♪ Being here at sunrise, it just feels like, like we were greeting the day.

- JUSTIN: My sort of inspiration to start all of this is learning about people's experiences with nature.

That's such a fun story and a fun starting point for a composition.

- JOE: We're a part of the earth, and the earth is singing all the time.

So I just take some time to listen.

[birds chirping] [serene music] [upbeat music] - HOLLY GRAND: The people who are out here a lot understand the importance of keeping our bays clean.

They're going out on their own vessels, using their own time to help us remove these traps.

- We have a pretty strong passion for taking part in this effort.

- If it's in the water, it usually has something in it.

Blue crabs, and stone crabs, and fish are in the trap.

[upbeat music] - This week, Parks and Wildlife has closed the bays to all crabbing, and any trap left in the water is assumed derelict.

And so our job is to pick them up.

Let's go check it out.

[boat motor revving] I'm Allan Berger.

You get back to the maps?

I'm the chairman of the San Antonio Bay partnership, whose mission is to care for the San Antonio Bay system.

- TYLER: Yeah, that's a buoy.

- ALLAN: Get your hook.

- I'm Tyler Sanderson, the Executive Director of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Trust.

We are a land trust conserving working lands, open space, and habitat in the Guadalupe River watershed.

The Guadalupe River watershed runs from Kerrville to the coast, and it comes out right here in the San Antonio Bay.

And that's why we come down here.

It's a really cool project.

I mean, it's the only way to really describe it.

Two stone crabs, three stone crabs.

When you actually get out there and you see how many traps are left, How many critters are stuck, it has an impact on you.

- ALLAN: A trap that's in the water, even though it's not baited, when something gets in it and dies, it self-baits.

So it continues to fish, even though it's not being commercially run.

So many of the traps we pull out of the water have live crabs in them and dead crabs in them and haven't been run by commercial fishermen for months.

- TYLER: We've got a blue crab.

Big crab.

- ALLAN: It kills crabs and it kills fish the same way.

- TYLER: One, two, three, three fish.

- ALLAN: So that's-that's the primary importance of getting them out of the water, so that they're not ghost fishing.

- TYLER: Come on out of there buddy.

There you go.

- ALLAN: In addition to that, they also are navigation hazards.

- TYLER: This one's damaged.

- ALLAN: Boats run into them.

That one's damaged too?

- TYLER: Yeah, just a dead fish.

- ALLAN: Shrimpers catch them in their nets.

As important to me is that they're ugly litter, all along the beach front.

- TYLER: Nice and light.

I see one, two, three... - HOLLY: This is definitely about protecting our resources for everyone, but it is really important for our anglers because it is potentially impacting their catch.

- Whooping cranes!

- HOLLY: The whooping cranes that come down here every year, every winter, a big part of their diet are these blue crabs.

This is everyone's bay.

This is 20.

My name is Holly Grand and I am the statewide coordinator for the Abandoned Crab Trap Removal Program.

We can't do this alone.

- NARRATOR: Abandoned crab traps have been an increasing problem in the bays, trapping unused crabs and other marine life.

- HOLLY: The first year of the Crap Trap Clean Up back in 2002, it was mostly our game wardens who participated.

- Give an award for the heaviest and ugliest trap out here.

- It was very clear after that that there was no way that we could do it on our own.

So we enlisted the help of a lot of different organizations, like the San Antonio Bay Partnership, Galveston Bay Foundation, the Christmas Bay Foundation.

All have large volunteer events.

[dramatic music] - You see a float?

- ALLAN: I see one out there, yeah.

I was a fishing bum for about three years when I retired, and then I decided it was time to kind of start giving back a little bit of my love for the bay.

- Another one right out there.

- Enough.

[laughs] We don't need anymore!

[laughs] - TYLER: I love the coast, and that mission to conserve the bay.

Six fish.

Three of them dead.

There's quite a few critters in these.

Every single one, it seems like, has had something in them.

You see a lot of dead fish in here, but the ones that are alive, it does feel good that you're sending them home.

You're a slippery bugger!

My back is going to be a little sore, my shoulders are going to be a little sore.

I don't work out normally, so getting my workout in this week.

This one needs a haircut like me.

Wilson!

[laughs] - The best part about this is that at the end of the day, you can actually look and see what you've been able to accomplish.

- TYLER: Entire body workout doing this.

I don't know how many we've done, about 40.

I think the most important thing is awareness, having better outreach and education for these crabbers to understand the impact they're having by leaving them out there.

- For the past few years, we've been finding close to 3,000 traps every year.

Since the beginning of the program, we've been able to save over half a million blue crabs.

- Yeah, it's really uplifting.

- ALLAN: We'll be back.

If we do a good job of managing our business, we shouldn't have to pick up so many traps.

So my goal is to see the number of traps we pick up go down every year.

[birds chirping] [graceful music] - NARRATOR: Just east of Dallas, you'll find a wetland that's a one-of-a-kind outdoor classroom.

- JOHN: Today, in the East Fork wetland, the John Bunker Sands Wetland Center, we're welcoming Black Elementary from Mesquite Independent School District.

When they arrive, they'll unload off the buses and they just step out onto the boardwalk.

We call it an immersive boardwalk hike.

They go out for 20 to 30 minutes and make general observations.

- STUDENT: Look how pretty!

- Oh, there's ducks back there.

- So, the East Fork wetland is about 2,000 acres, mostly open emergent wetlands.

But we also have some hillside and some streamside and riverside riparian areas.

- STUDENT: Ooh, I want it.

- Wait, where?

I can't see y'all's view.

- Right there, wait, right there, right there.

That light green right there.

- Oh, I see it.

Okay, so there's two frogs on one of the stems right here, and another one right here.

- Did you see them?

- Yeah!

- [laughing] I love watching them interact with nature, however they interact with nature.

- STUDENT: Oh, look, a dragon fly!

- NICOLE: I think it's important because they're making those connections.

- STUDENT: Hold on, right there, there's like a turtle!

- Oh, my God, there's a family of fish.

I like to go outside and enjoy the outside world, and I like to, like, see a lot of animals running around and look at them up close.

All right, come on, guys.

Let's keep walking.

See if we find other stuff.

- NARRATOR: This isn't just a wetland outdoor classroom.

Taking water out of the Trinity, this is a water treatment wetland that cleans up to 90 million gallons of water a day.

- This natural treatment system, our wetlands, is the largest man-made wetland system in the United States, and it provides a number of different ways of treating the water.

There, it's coming up!

We use gravity.

We use sunlight.

We use plants in order to polish the water and remove constituents such as suspended solids, phosphorus, and nitrogen.

- NARRATOR: This natural water reuse concept was crafted by John Bunker Sands, turning his family's cattle operation into a one-of-a-kind wetland.

- We got quite a bit of the sedge.

- NARRATOR: Loretta Mokry helped come up with the idea.

- Before the wetland was built, this was a operating ranch that had been leveled and ditched and drained to where everything was in big square pastures.

Early spring, until we get the first really hard freeze, you'll have delta arrowhead blooming.

So, at this time, we're looking at planting all of these gaps with giant bulrush.

- BIOLOGIST 1: When you're ready, I'll pull it out.

- BIOLOGIST 2: Now.

- LORETTA: So that we can fill in and have a fully vegetated marsh area that the water has to percolate through.

- This project is a tremendous opportunity to make good use of those water resources which are in our area.

We are really proud to be able to implement a project to use local resources to meet the needs of our local communities.

- Ya know, there's been a change in time, but it's been a change for the good, so that we have this sustainable water supply at the same time that we're protecting the aquatic environment of the river, as well as the aquatic environment that's here in the wetland.

I have a son and daughter in-law and five grandchildren that live in Plano, Texas, and developing this wetland, as it comes through, I know that it helps provide water supply that they receive at their tap.

This is water supply to my grandchildren.

It just... makes you feel good.

[laughing] - Yes, what do you have?

- STUDENT: I saw a shell.

- You saw a shell?

That's really good!

I tell them, like, this water that is a habitat for other ecosystems, this is your drinking water.

Like this is... You use it, you're going to cook your ramen noodles with it, you're going to flush the toilet with it, you're going to shower with it.

And that really gets their attention because after they start noticing that this affects me, that gets that buy in.

- She said that also how they clean the water is with the little cattails that was in the water.

It is really cool, how you get to see all the plants and all the animals that make the water, like, clean, and that's the water that you use.

It was pretty cool, actually.

- So, if you just glance right into the water, what do you see floating around on top?

Yeah, a lot of minnows.

When I think about the work that we do here... Yeah, you might want to pull off some of the big stuff.

Oh, see, there's a beetle in the bottom.

See him right there?

- Oh, yeah!

- And the work that we do here isn't just about students coming through and learning about what water is and how we recycle it.

It's about creating that next best solution that is more powerful than we can imagine today.

Oh, I did get a fish!

We're not just hugging trees, were hugging cattails, literally.

We're immersing them into the water.

We're giving them an opportunity to see what it might be like to either be a scientist or a biologist in this or just someone that engages with nature differently than they did before.

So, if we can reach one student on that level or many students... and then as they grow older and go off to college and say, this is what I want to do, I was at John Bunker Sands for four hours one day, and it's amazing what they did there.

That's the difference that we want to make in the world.

That's the next best solution.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ [wind blowing] [crickets chirping] [crickets chirping] [crickets chirping] [crickets chirping] [birds chirping] [water lapping] [crickets chirping] [wind blowing] [water lapping] [crickets chirping] [crickets chirping] This series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure: it's what we share.