Another species is battling extinction in Texas. The Attwater’s Prairie Chicken, once more numerous than the buffalo, now number in the 40s. The Attwater’s Prairie Chicken is actually a subspecies of a grouse called the Hearth Hen. The Hearth Hen went extinct in the 1920s.

Each spring, males gather to perform an elaborate courtship ritual. They inflate yellow air sacs and emit a booming sound across the prairies, vying for the attention of the female of the species. Once silenced, the Attwater’s Prairie Chicken will never be heard again. Another unique voice will have been quelled by encroaching urban blight.

Attwater’s Prairie Chickens once inhabited 6 million acres of coastal prairie, from Corpus Christi, Texas, northward to the Bayou Teche area in Louisiana, and inland some 75 miles. Grasses of many species waved in the winds including little bluestem, Indiangrass, and switchgrass. Today less than 1 percent of this rich coastal prairieland exists. Rice, oil, houses, ports and canals cover the land once home to many species.

In the 1960s, the World Wildlife Fund purchased about 3,500 acres of virgin prairie 40 miles from Houston, and the Attwater’s Prairie Chicken had at least one place to call home. The land was transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1972. Today, the refuge is more than three times its original size. The problem is, the population is already at the critical point, where the gene pool is just too limited to flourish. Attwater’s Prairie Chicken is on the way out.

Why Did the Prairie Chicken Cross the Road to Extinction? Because no one cared enough to try and save it until it was too late. Do not let this happen to another species. God gave us stewardship over the other species on the Earth. We have failed our God-given mission.

Visit the Attwater’s Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge this spring. Maybe you will here the booming voice of the male for the last time. Maybe this will be a good spring and the population will flourish. I hope to God that is so.

I found a new source for maps of the Texas coast and south Texas. Texmaps publishes atlases, wall maps, specialty maps and has a wonderful selection of free maps. Their digital mapping system is incredible.

We love maps! They hang from our walls like priceless paintings and are covered in fingerprints. In fact, I worked for one of the largest university Geography departments in the US, so I have seen some serious maps. However, these maps are so far beyond anything I have seen before. The aerial color infared maps of the Texas coast are incredible (left).

Take a look at this map of Aransas and Copano Bays. The entire picture looks like some exotic jewel and, if you click a square, you can zoom in to almost street level.

I love living in this century! Just when I think I have seen everything, something else surprises me. Back in December, I was excited to find and write about virtual travel. I found many websites where you can take virtual tours of destinations around the globe. I thought that was pretty hot. But, hold on y’all, because you have not seen anything!

An article in MediaPost’s Search Insider(Lights, Camera, Point And Click! by Gord Hotchkiss) makes virtual travel come alive.

Here is his idea of the virtual tourist:

You’re watching a movie that features some gorgeous locations in France and Italy. As you watch the movie, you hit a flag button on your Media Center remote every time you see an interesting villa, an intriguing town, a vintage bottle of wine or that little bistro that seems so romantic.

By the end of the film, you have a detailed travel itinerary, including airfare costs, hotel availability and restaurant suggestions! Just one or two more clicks and you have reservations.

This means that virtual travel will become more relevant to consumers. That means that the technology will be there to faciliate this process. Finally, I see what the search engine buzz is about. Someday we will not search, but point and click. Cool?

Keep your wheels on the road!

Eileen