By Brandt Mannchen
In 2024 we celebrate many anniversaries of federal public lands that have been set aside for the protection of ecosystems and public enjoyment. The Wilderness Act is 60 years-old, Big Thicket National Preserve is 50 years-old, the five East Texas Wilderness Areas are 40 years-old, and Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge (TRNWR) is 30-years old.
On January 4, 1994, TRNWR was established by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) as part of the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS). The Emergency Wetlands Resources Act of 1986 states that refuges, like the TRNWR, can be established for “the conservation of the wetlands of the Nation in order to maintain the public benefits they provide and to help fulfill international obligations contained in various migratory bird treaties and conventions”.
The mission of the NWRS is, “to administer a national network of lands, and waters for the conservation, management and where appropriate, restoration of the fish, wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats within the United States for the benefit of present and future generations of America”.
The TRNWR was established to protect bottomland hardwood forest habitat in southeastern Texas. The TRNWR consists of bottomland hardwood tracts within the Trinity River Floodplain that contain habitats that are conducive for migratory bird populations and are, for the most part, wetlands.
The TRNWR has broad, flat floodplains, and numerous sloughs, oxbows, artesian wells, and tributaries. The TRNWR has more than 635 plants and 350 vertebrate species. This includes more than 200 birds, 60 fish, 40 mammals, and 50 reptile/amphibian species. Today, the TRNWR consists of 30,000 acres of mostly bottomland hardwood forest in Liberty County, about 40 miles east of Houston, Texas.
The first unit acquired for TRNWR was the Butler Unit, which is 4,400 acres. This Unit was part of the Wirt-Davis Estate. Unfortunately, the 4,400 acres were all that were acquired from that 20,000-acre estate. A golden opportunity missed, but the Butler Tract is the “diamond” of the TRNWR.
Recently, I went with a friend to visit the Butler Unit. I hadn’t been to the Unit in over 10 years, so it was a good time to reacquaint myself with it. There is a short, 0.4-mile trail that goes from north to south from the parking lot. It was a beautiful, sunny, mild, day with a few clouds and a lot of blue in the sky.
The Butler Unit is the only one in the TRNWR that has acreage on both sides of the Trinity River. It is about a 5-mile hike, through an edge of uplands and then a massive floodplain that has many oxbows, abandoned channels, swales, sloughs, and other natural water retaining areas to reach the Trinity River.
Our goal for the hike was to reach a large Water Tupelo swamp that was about 2/3rds of a mile in. That sounds simple, but the undulations of the terrain along with stream crossings, thickets, and wetlands to be reconnoitered made the hike one of cris-crossing the landscape. This resulted in us starting out in the southern part of the Unit and ending up at the northern end of the Unit and the Water Tupelo swamp.
How the heck did that happen? I had observed in the past, that in floodplains, it’s easy to lose track of the direction you are going. The Butler Unit had taught us that lesson again.
Unfortunately, non-native privet, Japanese Honeysuckle, and Japanese Climbing Fern were seen. These non-native invasive plant species compete with native plants and take up the nutrients and space needed for bottomland plant species. The dreaded feral hogs also left their evidence when we saw the soil turned over due to their rooting. Like a natural bulldozer. Not good for forest creatures and plants.
As we walked, I kept a list of some of the native trees and plants that I saw. These included:
Willow Oak, Nuttall Oak, Yaupon Holly, Cherry Laurel, Poison Ivy, Loblolly Pine, Sweetgum, Southern Magnolia, American Holly, Water Oak, American Elm, sphagnum moss, Switchcane, Pecan, Eastern Cottonwood, Bald Cypress, Honey Locust, American Hornbeam, Trumpet Vine, Dwarf Palmetto. Green Ash, greenbriar species, American Basswood, grape species, White Oak, Eastern Hophornbeam, American Elderberry, Violet Wood Sorrel (the only flower we saw blooming), violet species, Swamp Chestnut Oak, American Sycamore, Black Willow, Resurrection Fern, Sassafras, Christmas Fern, Black Walnut, Sassafras, Ebony Spleenwort Fern, Sugarberry, Canadian Black Snakeroot. Cherrybark Oak, hawthorn species, Water Tupelo, Water Elm, Red Maple, and American Beautyberry.
A vast diversity of plants is splashed across the varied and dissected topography of the Butler Unit. We also saw Turkey and Black Vultures (with guttural calls and aggressively charging each other as they flew), Pileated Woodpecker, American Crow (cawing through the forest), Norther Cardinal, and a Red-shouldered Hawk calling and circling overhead as we ate lunch at the Water Tupelo swamp.
Many other birds flitted through the naked trees (leaves down for Winter) and remained unidentified. We also saw a Gray Squirrel which quickly disappeared up a tree and a dead armadillo.
It was a great day to be alive and I was so glad that the Sierra Club and many others fought for the TRNWR. It feels good to visit a place you have fought to save. We are lucky indeed that the TRNWR exists for its own sake, and that we get to enjoy it. I call that a win, win.