Exploring the Edges of Texas

Epilogue

Epilogue Our journey around Texas has come to an end. Our companions have included archeologists, artists, bird banders and watchers, botanists, cowboys,ecologists,explorers,geologists and paleontologists,log-pullers, map-makers, river-runners, writers, and zoologists. Some served as modern-day guides.They escorted us onto the plains, across deserts and mountains, down wild rivers, up the coast, into the dark recesses of an urban wilderness, and through the shadows of the Pineywoods.Those who came before us left poignant firsthand accounts of an earlier Texas teeming with plant and animal life. Through their diaries, journals, and official reports, we have seen how much Texas has changed in the last three centuries. Some of that change has been tragic. Whole nations of Native Americans vanished, decimated by war and disease. Seemingly limitless herds of bison were hunted to the brink of extinction. A primeval forest of longleaf pines was chopped down, cut up, and carted away. But there were success stories as well. Florence Bailey, the Audubon Society,and many others prevented plume hunters from robbing the Gulf Coast of its elegant herons and egrets. Concerned sportsmen and effective legislation halted the wholesale slaughter of white-tailed deer at the hands of commercial hunters. Citizen activists Terry Hershey, George Mitchell, and their allies kept the verdant upper reaches of Buffalo Bayou from becoming a concrete ditch. Our four thousand mile long, three century deep journey around the state has taught us two important lessons. First–people are more likely to preserve and protect things they know about and value. Kirk Courson, the Panhandle oil man, put it simply, when he said that education was the key to preserving archeological sites. That insight applies to a wide EPiLoguE { 238 } range of cultural and environmental resources. Lutcher Moore, the East Texas lumberman, once considered saving some stands of longleaf pine for the future, but he knew his competitors would not relent. Reluctantly, he gave up the idea and cut till the last tree fell. Had he known then, what we know now, he might have decided differently. But knowledge of the natural world comes at a price–that is the second lesson learned from our journey. Hardworking men and women took risks and invested their lives in the search for information that enlightens . A botanist walked nearly seven hundred miles collecting plants. A fossil hunter died on the prairie looking for fossils. An ornithologist spent sixty years studying Texas birds. What they and others learned has changed the way we look at the natural world. We know names and histories of our plant and animal companions. We understand how our actions affect them–how our decisions impact land, water, and air. The extraordinary men and women who explored the Texas borderlands left a priceless legacy. They helped write the natural history of the state. The stories they pieced together highlight the value of our cultural and natural resources, inform our public discourse, and enrich our lives. On a more personal level, Isabel and I agree that bird artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes best captured the spirit of our trip when he described a night spent high in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend: When the big southern moon comes cooly up from behind her great mountain & floods the cañon & valley with soft light, & the owls & whippoorwills & other night lovers come out & give it all a new and unsolved life, it makes me long to have some power to get your senses . . . down here to help me hold it. . . . I wouldn’t miss the cool breeze on my head & the wonderful throbbing bigness of these glorious nights for anything [you] could name. EPiLoguE { 239 } We have learned, as Fuertes did, that life is an unsolved mystery, and regret, as he did, that we cannot capture moonlight or convey the throbbing bigness of theTexas sky. Such things are gifts, not possessions. We encountered many on our trip around the state . . . left them where we found them . . . and wouldn’t trade the memory of them for anything you could name. ...