Texas Wildlife Management Areas offer hunting, research opportunities to the masses
Composed of 50 WMAs across the state and totaling roughly 750,000 acres, these lands offer a wealth of recreational opportunities while also serving as vital locations for numerous research projects
Texas is home to the largest and most diverse habitat complex in the entire country. From the meandering canyons of the Panhandle to the rippling bay systems of the coast north to south, and from the dense Pineywoods thickets to the rugged mountains of the Trans-Pecos east to west, the Lone Star State harbors ecological wonders spanning an entire range of natural splendor.
That being said, the vast majority of our overall Texas landscapes exist on private land. However, one of the crown jewels of public outdoor opportunities open to the masses is the state’s Wildlife Management Area system. Composed of 50 WMAs spread across the state and totaling roughly 750,000 acres, these lands offer a wealth of public hunting and recreational opportunities while also serving as vital locations for numerous ongoing wildlife research projects aimed at improving hunting opportunities and the health of our state’s myriad local ecosystems in the process.
Here is a look at some of our WMAs across the state that are helping to improve and impact native habitats in addition to wildlife decision-making at multiple levels.
Mason Mountain Wildlife Management Area
Mason Mountain, located in Mason County just north of the city of Mason, sits right in the hotbed of exotic territory in the Hill Country. While the Kerr WMA research focus is squarely on white-tailed deer, Mason Mountain management and discovery rests with exotic critters, namely African species that are found on many high-fence hunting ranches in Texas.
Mason Mountain, which was acquired in 1997 by TPWD, had been a working exotic game ranch and today has numerous species of exotics, including scimitar-horned oryx and gemsbok. Among the key research efforts at the WMA has been to learn how exotics affect native species and the role they play in native habitats. As more landowners in the Hill Country and other parts of Texas started bringing exotic wildlife onto the native range, TPWD biologists have come to devote their time to learn as much as possible about how large African species would compete not only with natives but also with livestock as some species are grazers while others are browsers.
Other WMA research has been focused on technical guidance outreach in working with landowners to decide how many exotic animals a particular ranch can support in a healthy manner while continuing the health of native habitats.
Mason Mountain, like Kerr WMA, offers drawn hunts for deer hunting, and also offers guided hunting packages for African exotics that also are available through the public hunting framework. Those hunting efforts all align with research objectives at each WMA.
Chaparral Wildlife Management Area
The “Chap” is undoubtedly among the most notable hot spots for public land deer hunting in the Lone Star State, and as evidenced by the multiple nice bucks taken each year, that distinction isn’t going away anytime soon.
The Chap, composed of more than 15,000 acres of native South Texas habitat, includes portions of land in La Salle and Dimmit counties between Carrizo Springs and Cotulla. The WMA, roughly a two-hour drive southwest of San Antonio, was purchased in 1969 with Pittman-Robertson funds to serve as a research and demonstration area for the Rio Grande Plains ecological area, as is the reasoning behind other WMAs across the state.
The WMA has been a vital cog in research on a number of species, including deer, quail, feral hogs, javelinas and even the venerable horned lizard.
The Chap, while a wildlife hotbed today, faced a historic fire in March 2008 that consumed about 95% of the entire WMA. In all, the fast-moving blaze torched roughly 50,000 acres of South Texas habitat in the area, including portions of some of the state’s most celebrated trophy whitetail ranches.
That massive burn became an intriguing case study in the effects of large-scale fire on native habitats and wildlife. After the fire, biologists documented exceptional growth of native forage beneficial to whitetails for a number of years, which subsequently brought about the highest consecutive years of fawn production and productivity that the WMA had ever experienced.
In addition to management deer hunts, the Chap also features a number of excellent youth-only hunting permits, including for bucks, spikes and antlerless deer, as well as openings for javelina. These hunts are open only to youths ages 8 to 16, and unlike the other public hunts, the fees for winners are waived for both adult supervisors and youths.
Gus Engeling Wildlife Management Area
Engeling, at about 10,000 acres, sits just north of the unincorporated community of Tennessee Colony and is among the most diverse land holdings overseen by TPWD. The WMA is home to more than 1,000 plant species and a host of wildlife — including species of 37 mammals, 156 birds, 54 reptiles and amphibians, and 57 fish.
The area originally was named the Derden Wildlife Management Area after Milze L. Derden, from whom much of the land was purchased. The area was renamed in 1952 after Gus A. Engeling, the first biologist assigned to the area, who was shot and killed by a poacher on Dec. 13, 1951.
As with other WMAs, the initial goal and intended purpose at Engeling was to serve as a wildlife research and demonstration area where biologists could study and evaluate wildlife and habitat management practices. Starting in the 1990s, the majority of staff duties shifted from research to public use activities and development, according to TPWD. The agency’s Wildlife Division has a number of priorities for the WMA, namely developing and managing wildlife habitats and populations of indigenous species, providing areas to demonstrate habitat development and wildlife management practices to landowners and other interested groups, and also providing public hunting frameworks.
Among the notable research projects conducted at Engeling are white-tailed deer aging techniques, factors affecting white-tailed deer fawn survival, comparisons of feeding habits between white-tailed deer and cattle, and site-specific competition between feral hogs and white-tailed deer.
The WMA also is open to the public for a number of activities including bird watching, photography, hiking and camping, in addition to public day and drawn hunts. Visitors 17 and older must possess either an annual public hunting permit or limited public use permit — as with other WMAs — to take part in those pursuits.
Black Gap Wildlife Management Area
At more than 100,000 acres, Black Gap is the largest WMA in Texas, harboring hundreds of species of birds, dozens of species of mammals and a dizzying and prickly array of native flora. The WMA in Brewster County — the largest county in the state — borders sprawling Big Bend National Park and also shares a border with the Mexican State of Coahuila, and 25 miles of the Rio Grande.
Black Gap — located in some of the lowest elevations of the Chihuahuan Desert found in the United States — is part of valuable, ongoing research conducted by TPWD surrounding a pair of sought-after big-game species.
Between 1949 and 1951, 300 mule deer were trapped near Sanderson and released onto Black Gap to supplement the native deer population, according to TPWD records. The deer population had reached about 900 in 1955, when the first public deer hunt was opened. The decision was made in 1963 to test the deer population to “severe” hunting pressure. Research on the seasonal movement of mule deer was conducted on the property between 1957 and 1963. Future studies took place to observe the rate of use of artificial water sites by the deer. The information attained was instrumental to determining future mule deer management practices on private and public lands in the Trans-Pecos, according to TPWD.
Black Gap also is home to groundbreaking research on the desert bighorn sheep. During the early years of the 20th Century, bighorns were hunted for their meat and to reduce the competition with domestic sheep, according to TPWD. It was soon observed that bighorn numbers were radically decreasing and in 1903 the state outlawed the hunting and killing of the bighorn. By 1941, the estimated numbers were approximately 150 for the entire state, according to TPWD records.
In the 1950s, reintroduction efforts commenced with the trapping of sheep in other western states which were then brought to Black Gap. Later efforts also included the transplantation of bighorns from Elephant Mountain WMA. Today, the bighorn population is doing well, with animals expanding their range onto surrounding private tracts, as well as into Mexico and Big Bend National Park.
Powderhorn Wildlife Management Area
The newest WMA in Texas, the Powderhorn includes an incredible array of wildlife and habitat including freshwater and brackish wetlands, coastal tallgrass prairie and live oak mottes. Several miles of Matagorda Bay and Powderhorn Lake make up a portion of the boundary of the WMA, which is an important resting spot for migrating birds. To date, almost 300 species have been documented in the area, including endangered whooping cranes that migrate into the area in the winter and feed primarily on blue crabs.
The Powderhorn property was purchased with funding and support from the BP Horizon oil spill mitigation, the TPWD Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, The Conservation Fund, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and private donations. In October 2018, the property was donated to TPWD to form the now 15,000-acre WMA.
The Powderhorn area habitat before overgrazing and suppression of wildfires was considered as coastal prairie with vast grasslands and scattered mottes of large coastal live oaks. Ongoing habitat improvement projects have included the use of prescribed burns and targeted herbicide treatments to help convert the area back to its historical native coastal prairie that harbors many different species found only along the coast and in estuary settings.
The WMA offers access to the public for bird watching tours and drawn hunting opportunities for both youths and adults. Those hunts include whitetails, exotics, feral and Rio Grande turkeys.
The Powderhorn is also included in the annual Big Time Texas Hunts conducted by TPWD and the lucky winner and a guest are able to hunt for whitetails, exotics and waterfowl, in addition to going on a guided saltwater fishing trip in Matagorda Bay.
More Information: tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/hunt/wma