Hurricane Harvey was said to have resulted in a loss of 60 percent of adult breeders on Matagorda, San Jose and Mustang Island in 2017.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A major milestone is unfolding on North Padre Island: a rare species of falcon once thought gone from the Texas landscape is making a comeback thanks to conscious breeding and reintroduction efforts underway right here in the Coastal Bend.
For the first time, there’s proof that the recovery effort is working.
Tucked beyond the dunes off Park Road 22, a team including Nueces County Coastal Parks director Scott Cross, moves carefully through the coastal grassland with eyes on a nesting box that holds a rare and remarkable discovery.
“It’s very rewarding,” Cross said.
It’s a moment he has been waiting years for.
“How often do you get a chance to start some kind of conservation effort and then see it all the way to full cycle,” Cross said.
Two baby Aplomado Falcons were collected from their boxes and tagged.
Once abundant across the Southwestern U.S. the species all but disappeared by the early 20th century. But, thanks to relentless conservation work, these sky hunters are soaring again.
Up close, the birds remained calm even while being held.
In winter of 2015 Coastal Parks applied for a grant to establish adult nesting boxes on the Kleberg property, a project partnership with Peregrine Fund, USFWS, and CBBEP during that time Coastal Parks executed a safe harbor agreement with Fish and Wildlife Service for the Kleberg property site.
Cross believed one day the birds would return.
“Waiting and waiting and waiting, we’d hoped that some of the birds would imprint on them,” Cross said. “We had some single female males flying around and stuff, but nobody ever took up residence,” said Cross.
Then Hurricane Harvey hit, dealing a crippling blow in 2017 to these birds of prey.
“They lost about 60% of the adult breeding pairs,” Cross said.
The boxes were built back in 2016, but this is the first documented case of a nesting pair that have successfully produced chicks on Padre Island.
For Tom Hudson, who’s been working with the Peregrine Fund since 2017, its almost like a proud ‘papa’ moment.
“Yeah, you could say that, yeah,” Cross said. “I mean they don’t know me from Adam, you know, but they are, I feel a lot of pride towards them.”
The chicks are only about a month old.
Each one was carefully weighed, and then those bands were secured.
Their past unknowingly holding a connection to the area.
“It’s extremely cathartic to have released, you know, the grandfather of this bird, and then 4 years later they’re nesting right here at the hack site where their grandfather was released from,” said Hudson.
Hudson has been feeding and monitoring the birds daily.
The falcons were then carried back to their box and Hudson said they will be flying in no time.
“We’ll be able to identify this bird at later dates without having to handle her,” Hudson said. “She can continue to fly free and we can get eyes on her.”
From once vanished to victorious, conservationists hope it’s just the beginning.