Texas Parks turn Christmas trees into fish habitats

Parks turn Christmas trees into fish habitats

Texas Parks and Wildlife is using old Christmas trees to build new aquatic habitats in fisheries around the state.

AUSTIN, Texas - Texas Parks and Wildlife is taking the old adage "waste not, want not" to start building new habitats from old Christmas decorations.

FOX 7 Austin's Mike Warren spoke with Inland Fisheries Abilene District Supervisor Michael Homer, Jr. to learn more about the project.

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MIKE WARREN: With the holidays behind us, Inland Fisheries is recycling Christmas trees to build aquatic habitats in Texas lakes. What makes these trees such a good place for fish to call home?

MICHAEL HOMER: Well, the nice thing about Christmas trees is that they provide a lot of spaces that young fish can hide. Also, you have sport fish that will cruise the outside of these trees for predation, they'll hunt smaller fish. In larger bundles, you create a lot more habitat complexity. And in Texas, a lot of our reservoirs have actually lost habitat due to loss of vegetation and woody plants, woody debris, due to a lot of sediment being washed in over time. And so, as fisheries biologists, we often go out and do several types of habitat enhancement projects to try to keep our fishing quality going and provide homes for these fish. Christmas trees, being that they're natural materials, they're easily obtained after the holidays. It's just a good way for folks that want to make use of something that they would discard, something that would be in good stewardship to fisheries and the environment.

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MIKE WARREN: It seems like such a great idea. Who came up with this idea?

MICHAEL HOMER: You know, a lot of folks have been doing this for many years. Anglers have certainly had it in mind that, you know, they want to create hunting holes on their own. Certainly, fisheries biologists have picked up on that. And so it's been happening for decades. But as far as TPWD's efforts, we too have been working on and doing Christmas tree brush piles for many, many years.

MIKE WARREN: Is Texas Parks and Wildlife looking into other ways that discarded resources can be turned into habitats like the Christmas trees?

MICHAEL HOMER: Certainly. You know, there are opportunities for us to use other natural materials. Juniper brush, which is often cleared from land, is another source of woody plants that we use to create fish habitat in the form of brush piles in several of our reservoirs. And as you know, in Texas, we have really no shortage of that. It's just a matter of being able to obtain it and get our hands on it so we can actually put it out. But, that's certainly something that is another form of plants that we make use of to create habitat.