{"id":5162,"date":"2012-01-26T12:40:38","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T18:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=5162"},"modified":"2012-01-26T13:23:56","modified_gmt":"2012-01-26T19:23:56","slug":"how-the-drought-is-drying-up-parks-and-wildlife-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/26\/how-the-drought-is-drying-up-parks-and-wildlife-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Drought is Hurting Parks and Wildlife Funding"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2796\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"The carcass of a cow that became mired in the mud in a dry stock tank in Knox County, Texas during the summer drought\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/drought-0014-media.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2796\" title=\"drought-0014-media\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/drought-0014-media-300x210.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/drought-0014-media-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/drought-0014-media-620x434.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/drought-0014-media-220x154.jpg 220w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/drought-0014-media.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Earl Nottingham\/Texas Parks &amp; Wildlife<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The carcass of a cow that became mired in the mud in a dry stock tank in Knox County, Texas during the summer drought<\/p><\/div>\n<p>At a hearing this week on funding for Texas state parks, several people voiced concern that as drought and extreme temperatures continue, funding will evaporate for the <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/texas-parks-and-wildlife-department\/\">Texas Parks and Wildlife Department<\/a>. Erika Aguilar of KUT News, StateImpact Texas&#8217; local radio partner, <a href=\"http:\/\/kut.org\/2012\/01\/drought-wildfires-strain-texas-parks-budget\/\">has more<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIf we are going to keep these special treasures for all Texans to use and enjoy, we need to\u00a0raise $4.6 million,\u201d Texas Parks and Wildlife Executive Director Carter Smith told lawmakers this week. Last month, the agency launched a public fundraising campaign to fill a significant department deficit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe consequences of us not being able to realize those revenue targets are real,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThey\u2019re tangible. And we absolutely may be looking, particularly at 2013, at further cut backs and that could include things as drastic as closures and looking at transfers again.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In December, the Parks and Wildlife Department asked for millions of dollars in donations to offset the loss of visitors due to the extreme drought and excessive heat of last summer. Since then, they&#8217;ve raised more than $460,000 from donations, some of which have come from a new Texas Department of Motor Vehicles opt-in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tpwd.state.tx.us\/spdest\/parkinfo\/help\/dmv.phtml\">donation program<\/a>, and an additional $500,000 from the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/tpwf.org\/\">Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation<\/a>. That still leaves a funding gap of approximately $3.5 million.<\/p>\n<p>Read more on this story <a href=\"http:\/\/kut.org\/2012\/01\/drought-wildfires-strain-texas-parks-budget\/\">at KUT News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At a hearing this week on funding for Texas state parks, several people voiced concern that as drought and extreme temperatures continue, funding will evaporate for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Erika Aguilar of KUT News, StateImpact Texas&#8217; local radio partner, has more: \u201cIf we are going to keep these special treasures for all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":2796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[61,90],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5162"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5168,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162\/revisions\/5168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}